Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

Fictional Clone: The Birth of Jean Louis Finch

        “Unlike nearly all the other girls, she isn’t wearing lipstick, her hair doesn’t look as if it’s seen a curling iron recently, and her chin, held high, gives her unsmiling face a truculent expression (Shields 61). This quote sounds like a description of Scout Finch, one of the most popular and famous fictional characters ever created in American literature. In actuality, this was said about Scout’s creator, Harper Lee, making the parallels between creator and creation overly apparent. In fact, in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee modeled the main character of Scout Finch after her own childhood in Monroeville, Alabama. According to confidants, Harper drew on deeply painful family secrets to create her protagonists and George Thomas Jones, someone who has known Harper and her family for years stated, “I’m not a psychologist, but there’s a lot of Nelle in that book” (Churcher).

        Nelle Harper Lee wasn’t like the other girls growing up in Monroeville during the depression. Not one for frilly dresses or hair ribbons, Nelle preferred hand me down denim overalls, a female Huck Finn with large brown eyes and close cropped hair (Shields 34). Never one to back down from a fight, Nelle relished these altercations if it meant coming to the aid of

weaker comrade, or defending a value she held firm. “Though she was only seven years old, Nelle Harper Lee was a fearsome stomach puncher, foot stomper, and hair puller, who could talk

mean like a boy” (32). This was evident as she felt the need to defend her best friend Truman, and beat up neighborhood boys who took pleasure in bullying him. Lee used this same trait in Scout Finch, as evidenced in the schoolyard tussle she had with Walter Cunningham following what she believed was a compassionate act of educating the new teacher on the Cunningham family (Lee 29).

        In bringing Scout to life, Lee pulled from her own childhood, either nearly every aspect we have come to recognize in the character, the least of which was being known by a nickname. Nelle, for reasons that have never been revealed, was better known as Dody, while Scout’s birth name was Jean Louise. Both were known during their primary school years as children with vast vocabularies who read well beyond the level of their classmates. Teachers were concerned and didn’t know how to deal with their skepticism, being accustomed to quiet children. This trait caused author James McBride to say of the character Scout that she “Sees the world through the child’s eyes with an adult’s understanding (Hey Boo! DVD).

        Family relationships were another major aspect that Lee drew from her own life in creating Scout, particularly the father/daughter relationship. Both Lee’s father, Amasa Coleman (A.C.), and Scout’s father Atticus were lawyers and called by their first names by their children. A.C. would “encourage Nelle to clamber up on his lap to “help” him read the newspaper” (Shields 58), mirrored in the fictional scene of Scout sitting on Atticus’ lap to read the town newspaper. Lee herself, spoke of how she would spend her Days at the courthouse and “mostly I