In Language Arts class, we have been talking about culture and how it affects the author’s writing.  I am reading the book “To Kill a Mocking-bird” by Harper Lee. Throughout the book we can notice that Harper Lee’s life was described in the book. We can tell that  many things happened in the story because of her life when a child. Her culture affected her writing, it helps us realize that she didn’t have a perfect childhood or an easy one. Harper Lee lived in a small town called Monroeville. She was the youngest of four children. She was born on April 28, 1926 in Alabama. Lee was always known as a loner and individualist person. Which explained her childhood and why she got the idea to write her first book in centuries.

          When Harper Lee was 10 years old, a white girl that lived near her hometown accused a black man of raping her. The man’s trial were covered by her father’s newspaper. This fact helped to build Lee’s sense of a dramatic story. Just like in To Kill a Mocking-bird . Harper Lee’s dad was a  lawyer, just like Atticus, she was a tomboy like Scout.

        Many people believe that Harper Lee was influenced by what influences many writers and that she took the idea of the book from her own personal experience and culture. Both cities, her hometown and the book’s setting had  courthouses, neighbors who knew everyone’s business, and a resident who terrified local kids. Harper Lee said that To Kill a Mocking-bird was not a book of  autobiography, but that she took scenes and characters from her childhood to remind Maycomb’s landscape. Harper Lee got a lot of insperation from her town and also from her culture. Anyway, this was my point of view about culture,  Harper Lee’s writing background and how it affected the way she wrote the story.

My sources were: http://www.harperlee.com/bio.htm

http://www.biography.com/people/harper-lee