Friday, October 21, 2005

Life from a Child's Perspective: Part I

It is interesting to view the world without the prejudices that life has endowed upon us on our way here. Who else can tell it better than a child? A life of a five/six year old revolves around much simpler things. Its very black or white for them. And those letters have no racial connotation in the young minds.

Imagination at such a young age is at its highest intensity. I still remember
(and this way ages ago ) me and my friends had decided that this old unoccupied shed was inhabited by an old witch. I can still imagine her. We used to stay away from it. Turned out a few years later (when I went and looked at it) it was just a dumpster of some kind. But so what? The whole idea that a witch could live there made the whole place so much more interesting.

"To Kill a Mocking Bird" by Harper Lee is life from a child's perspective. It won the Pultizer award (I think) and was made into a movie too (Gregory Peck stars in it!) The movie does do some justice to the book. Still the book is one of its kind (or maybe not since I have titled this post as part I!)

The book is narrated by the daughter of Atticus Finch who is a lawyer. Set in early 1900s when the racial discrimination was still at large, Atticus is to defend a black man from being convicted of rape. The story itself is however completely from viewpoint of and (as a article reminds me) encompasses three summers in Jean Finch's life.

The narration makes the story a combination of fact and hoardes of imagination !!! If anyone is curious about the title of the book, a mocking bird is a harmless creature, so who would want to kill it?

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