Can you help me understand some things about To Kill a Mockingbird?

Don’t have time to address all your questions but here’s some of the answers:

1. Dill is not a metaphor but he is a fanciful, imaginative child who drives the plot by intensifying the children’s interest in Boo Radley. He is based on the author Truman Capote who was parked in Monroeville every summer with relatives and was Harper Lee’s childhood friend. As an adult, she helped him in researching and writing In Cold Blood. They later had a falling out.

2. Yes, Boo Radley did stab his father in the leg.

3. Atticus did think that Jem had done it in self-defense and to protect Scout.

4. The ham costume was part of the pageant of Polk County products but certainly adds to the humor of the novel.

5. I’m not sure if Atticus or Calpurnia didn’t notice Boo although he certainly withdrew into the corner; what is significant in that scene is Scout noticing him and realizing what he had done.

On the whole, I would say that neither of the book or the movie are significantly metaphorical; they are bildungsromans – that is, works that describe coming of age. They are about Scout and Jem’s childhood and growing up amidst the reality of a racist town and learning about nuances in character. The main metaphor is that of the mockingbird – the lesson people that it is wrong to judge or kill someone that is innocent. The two “mockingbirds” in the book are Boo Radley and Tom Robinson.

On the whole, I think the movie does a pretty good job of giving the flavor of the book although it is a bit more sentimental and as you say, condenses some aspects. I love them both.

Does that help?

Man, Penguin, you don’t leave nothin’ but the bone.

Ok;. I got something. In the film, Boo Radley was Robert Duvall’s first film role ever.

@Espiritus_Corvus Oh yeah, I do love that fact too!

I will only add that you should try reading the book too. I do believe that reading a book is very different to watching the film or reading the Cliff notes. It is a great book

The spirit is the same in both the book and the movie.

Both are written from Scout’s POV. She learns so much that summer, and much of it is ugly, some of it is enlightening, all of it poignant.

At the center of her world, in both, is an intelligent, loving, compassionate, highly protective, but aloof, father, who has secrets of his own that Scout would never have dreamed of. He was flat-out opposed to guns, would never have one in his house. But, to Scout’s awed amazement, it turns out he was the best shot in the entire county in his younger days.

Dill’s purpose is to add a goody two-shoes, fraidy cat, as a counterpoint to Scout’s rambunctious, Tom-boy, risk-taking.

It is a fantastic book, and a fantastic movie.

Around the time I forced my kids to watch The Holy Grail, I tried to get them to watch To Kill a Mockingbird. My son refused. He said, “Why would I want to watch an old black and white movie about tequila??

@Dutchess_III

Tequila Mockingbird was a classic Get Smart episode.

I know Get Smart, but I didn’t know the episode, although I might remember it.

Thank you all, especially @janbb. That’s wonderful and interesting about Truman Capote, because last year I read his trilogy A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, and The Thanksgiving Visitor. I loved those stories!

I am looking forward to reading To Kill a Mockingbird.

On a side note. I just read a book called The Rosie Project in which the main character is described as looking like Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.