What Role Does Bob Ewell Play as the Antagonist in To Kill a Mockingbird?
Bob Ewell serves as the primary human antagonist in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, embodying the destructive forces of racism, ignorance, moral corruption, and vindictive cruelty that threaten the novel’s moral center and innocent characters. As the father who falsely accuses Tom Robinson of raping his daughter Mayella, Bob Ewell represents the worst aspects of Maycomb society—the willingness to destroy an innocent Black man’s life to preserve white supremacy and avoid accountability for his own failures and abusive behavior. Ewell functions as a multidimensional antagonist who operates on several levels: he is the immediate threat to Tom Robinson’s life and freedom through his false accusations and perjured testimony, the symbolic representation of systemic racism and class resentment that perpetuates injustice in the South, and the direct physical danger to the Finch family, particularly Jem and Scout, whom he attempts to murder in the novel’s climactic scene. His character demonstrates how individual moral failure intersects with broader social evils, showing that racism and injustice persist not merely through abstract systems but through the active choices of individuals willing to lie, manipulate legal institutions, and commit violence to maintain their sense of superiority and avoid consequences for their actions (Lee, 1960).
How Does Bob Ewell Embody Racism and White Supremacy in Maycomb?
Bob Ewell’s character serves as Harper Lee’s most explicit representation of virulent racism and the violent enforcement of white supremacy that maintained segregation and racial oppression in the Depression-era South. Ewell inhabits the lowest rung of white society in Maycomb—he is unemployed, illiterate, alcoholic, and lives in squalor behind the town dump with his numerous neglected children. Despite his complete lack of social respectability, education, or economic productivity, Ewell clings desperately to his racial identity as the sole source of status and self-worth in a rigidly hierarchical society. His false accusation against Tom Robinson exemplifies how the Southern racial caste system allowed even the most degraded white person to destroy a respectable Black person’s life simply by invoking racial taboos and sexual anxieties. Ewell understands that Maycomb’s white community, regardless of their private knowledge of his dishonesty and moral bankruptcy, will ultimately support him against a Black man because the alternative would undermine the racial hierarchy upon which their entire social order depends. This cynical manipulation of racist attitudes reveals both Ewell’s personal moral corruption and the systemic nature of racial injustice (Lee, 1960).
The specific nature of Ewell’s accusation—that Tom Robinson raped his daughter Mayella—demonstrates his strategic use of the South’s most inflammatory racial taboo to ensure his lie would be believed despite contradictory evidence. The specter of Black male sexuality threatening white female purity represented the foundational myth justifying segregation, lynch law, and the systematic terrorism that maintained white supremacy throughout the South. By invoking this particular accusation, Ewell activates deep-seated fears and prejudices that override rational evaluation of evidence, ensuring that no amount of logical demonstration of Tom Robinson’s innocence can overcome the emotional and ideological investment in believing the white accuser. Ewell’s willingness to send an innocent man to death to cover up his own abuse of his daughter and to maintain his fragile sense of racial superiority illustrates the murderous consequences of racism when combined with individual moral bankruptcy. His character demonstrates that white supremacy depends not only on abstract ideologies but on individuals willing to commit specific acts of violence and injustice to maintain racial hierarchies. Through Ewell, Lee shows how racism corrupts both individual character and community institutions, creating a system where justice becomes impossible when racial prejudice is invoked (Johnson, 1994).
What Motivates Bob Ewell’s False Accusation Against Tom Robinson?
Bob Ewell’s motivation for falsely accusing Tom Robinson of rape stems from a complex combination of factors including the need to conceal his own abuse of Mayella, his determination to punish Tom Robinson for witnessing his family’s dysfunction, his exploitation of racist attitudes to avoid accountability, and his desperate attempt to assert dominance in a society where he occupies the lowest social position among whites. The evidence presented during the trial strongly suggests that Ewell himself physically abused Mayella, with Atticus demonstrating through cross-examination that the injuries to the right side of Mayella’s face were consistent with being struck by a left-handed person, which describes Ewell but not the right-handed Tom Robinson. When Mayella’s lonely attempt to seduce Tom Robinson was discovered by her father, Ewell faced a choice between acknowledging the shameful reality of his family situation or destroying the Black man who had witnessed his daughter’s transgression of racial boundaries. His decision to pursue the latter course reveals his fundamentally cowardly and vicious nature—rather than confronting his own failures as a father and provider, he chose to sacrifice an innocent man to maintain his precarious social position (Lee, 1960).
Ewell’s motivation also encompasses class resentment and the psychological need to assert superiority over someone in Maycomb’s rigidly hierarchical society. As a member of what Atticus describes as “white trash,” Ewell occupies an ambiguous and humiliating social position—he is technically white and therefore theoretically superior to all Black residents, but his poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and moral degradation place him below many of Maycomb’s Black citizens in terms of actual respectability and community regard. Tom Robinson, despite his race, commands more genuine respect than Ewell through his work ethic, moral character, and family stability. This situation creates resentment in Ewell, who perceives Tom’s assistance to Mayella as patronizing charity that implicitly acknowledges the Ewell family’s dysfunction and Bob’s failure as a provider. By destroying Tom Robinson, Ewell reasserts the racial hierarchy that theoretically places him above any Black person regardless of their relative character or circumstances. His motivation thus combines immediate self-preservation with broader psychological needs to dominate and destroy anyone who threatens his fragile ego or exposes his inadequacies. This complex motivation makes Ewell a more realistic and therefore more disturbing antagonist than a simple villain—he represents how individual psychological weaknesses and resentments interact with systemic racism to produce tragic injustice (Shields, 2006).
How Does Bob Ewell’s Courtroom Testimony Reveal His Character?
Bob Ewell’s behavior and testimony during Tom Robinson’s trial provide crucial insights into his character, revealing his dishonesty, volatility, crude nature, and absolute lack of moral conscience or concern for truth and justice. When Ewell takes the witness stand, he displays contemptuous arrogance toward the court proceedings, treating the solemn legal process as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement and racist performance rather than a genuine pursuit of justice. His crude language, disrespectful demeanor, and obvious enjoyment of his position as the center of attention demonstrate his fundamental unsuitability as a credible witness, yet the white jury ultimately believes him anyway due to racial prejudice. Ewell’s testimony contains obvious inconsistencies and implausibilities that Atticus systematically exposes during cross-examination, including the suspicious failure to call a doctor despite the alleged severity of Mayella’s injuries, the convenient alignment of her injuries with Ewell’s own left-handedness rather than Tom Robinson’s right-handedness, and the inherent unlikelihood that the disabled Tom could have accomplished the assault as described (Lee, 1960).
The most revealing aspect of Ewell’s courtroom performance is his reaction to Atticus’s questioning, which exposes his volatility, dishonesty, and capacity for vindictive rage when his authority is challenged. When Atticus calmly but systematically demonstrates the implausibility of Ewell’s account and suggests that Ewell himself beat Mayella, Ewell becomes enraged and threatening, revealing the violent temper that likely produced Mayella’s injuries in the first place. His inability to control his anger even in the formal courtroom setting, where powerful social constraints normally regulate behavior, demonstrates the volatility that makes him genuinely dangerous. Ewell’s testimony also reveals his strategic intelligence within his limited sphere—he understands exactly which racial buttons to push to ensure white solidarity, and he correctly calculates that the jury will ultimately support him regardless of evidence because the alternative would require acknowledging that a white man lied to destroy a Black man’s life. This combination of cunning manipulation and uncontrolled rage makes Ewell a particularly threatening antagonist, one who can strategically exploit social systems while also being impulsively violent and unpredictable. His courtroom behavior thus serves multiple functions: advancing the plot, revealing character, and demonstrating how the legal system can be corrupted by racism and prejudice (Murray, 2008).
What Does Bob Ewell’s Attack on Jem and Scout Reveal About His Antagonistic Nature?
Bob Ewell’s attempted murder of Jem and Scout Finch in the novel’s climactic scene represents the culmination of his role as antagonist, revealing the extent of his moral depravity, cowardice, and capacity for evil. This attack on defenseless children occurs months after Tom Robinson’s trial, demonstrating Ewell’s vindictive nature and inability to move past perceived slights or challenges to his authority. Despite winning the trial and achieving Tom Robinson’s conviction, Ewell remains consumed by resentment toward Atticus Finch for exposing his lies and moral bankruptcy during cross-examination. Unable or unwilling to confront Atticus directly, Ewell instead targets the lawyer’s children in a cowardly act that reveals the depths of his villainy. The premeditated nature of the attack—Ewell waits for an isolated opportunity when the children are walking home in darkness from the school pageant—demonstrates calculated malice rather than impulsive rage, showing that Ewell’s evil encompasses both strategic planning and violent execution (Lee, 1960).
The specific details of the attack reveal multiple dimensions of Ewell’s antagonistic character, particularly his fundamental cowardice and his willingness to violate the most basic moral codes that even Maycomb’s flawed society recognizes. Ewell attacks children under cover of darkness, using the element of surprise against victims who cannot effectively defend themselves, demonstrating that despite his bluster and threats, he lacks the courage to face consequences or confront opponents capable of resistance. The attack also reveals Ewell’s determination to destroy innocence itself—Jem and Scout represent genuine innocence and emerging moral consciousness in the novel, and Ewell’s willingness to murder them symbolizes the threat that racism, ignorance, and moral corruption pose to the possibility of social progress and justice. During the attack, Ewell’s rage and determination to kill are evident in his continued assault even after breaking Jem’s arm, showing that his violence aims at complete destruction rather than mere intimidation or revenge. The attack’s ultimate failure—with Boo Radley intervening to kill Ewell in defense of the children—represents poetic justice and the defeat of the antagonist, though the trauma inflicted on Jem and the death of Ewell himself underscore the real costs of moral evil and social injustice. This climactic confrontation thus serves multiple narrative functions: providing dramatic resolution, demonstrating the ultimate consequences of unchecked evil, and symbolizing broader themes about the struggle between innocence and corruption (Bloom, 2010).
How Does Bob Ewell Represent Class Resentment and Social Dysfunction?
Bob Ewell’s character provides Harper Lee’s most explicit examination of class resentment and social dysfunction within Maycomb’s complex social hierarchy, demonstrating how poverty, lack of education, and social marginalization can combine with individual moral failure to produce destructive behavior. The Ewell family occupies a uniquely degraded position in Maycomb society—they are white in a rigidly segregated society that theoretically privileges whiteness above all else, yet they live in conditions worse than many Black families, residing in a shack behind the town dump, surrounded by filth and dysfunction. Bob Ewell is unemployed despite the Depression-era context where most men desperately seek work, instead spending his relief checks on alcohol while his numerous children go hungry and neglected. This situation creates a profound cognitive dissonance for both Ewell and Maycomb society—the racial ideology that structures Southern life insists on white supremacy, yet the visible reality of the Ewell family’s degradation challenges this narrative by demonstrating that racial identity alone does not guarantee prosperity, respectability, or moral worth (Lee, 1960).
Ewell’s resentment stems from his awareness that despite his theoretical racial superiority, he commands no genuine respect or social standing in Maycomb, while some Black citizens—particularly those like Tom Robinson who demonstrate work ethic, family stability, and moral character—effectively occupy higher social positions in terms of community regard even if not legal status. This paradox produces rage and resentment in Ewell, who perceives any Black person’s success or respectability as an implicit challenge to his own worth and an inversion of the proper social order. His false accusation against Tom Robinson thus serves not only immediate self-preservation but also broader psychological needs to reassert racial dominance and punish a Black man who dared to behave with more dignity and morality than Ewell himself displays. Lee uses Ewell’s character to explore how class marginalization and economic insecurity can intensify racist attitudes, as poor whites cling desperately to racial identity as their sole source of status in societies that offer them few other opportunities for dignity or achievement. However, Lee is careful not to present poverty itself as the cause of Ewell’s evil—other poor characters in the novel, including the Cunninghams and even Mayella Ewell to some extent, demonstrate more moral complexity and potential for decency. Rather, Ewell represents the combination of poverty with individual moral bankruptcy, showing how social dysfunction and personal character interact to produce destructive behavior (Johnson, 1994).
What Is the Significance of Bob Ewell’s Relationship With His Daughter Mayella?
Bob Ewell’s relationship with his daughter Mayella provides crucial context for understanding both his antagonistic role and the novel’s broader themes about victimization, abuse, and the cycle of violence perpetuated by racism and social dysfunction. The evidence presented during Tom Robinson’s trial strongly suggests that Ewell physically abuses Mayella, with her facial injuries consistent with being beaten by a left-handed person like her father. Mayella’s testimony, despite being perjured regarding Tom Robinson’s alleged assault, reveals a life of profound loneliness, deprivation, and fear dominated by her abusive father. She lives in desperate poverty, receives no education, performs all household labor caring for numerous younger siblings, and suffers her father’s drunken rages while being completely isolated from normal social interaction. Tom Robinson’s testimony reveals that Mayella’s attempt to seduce him stemmed from desperate loneliness and a complete lack of affection or human connection in her life, making her both victim of her father’s abuse and complicit in her father’s crime against Tom Robinson (Lee, 1960).
This complex relationship demonstrates how Ewell’s antagonistic evil extends beyond his direct victims to corrupt and destroy his own family, creating new victims who then become instruments of his crimes. Mayella occupies an ambiguous position in the novel’s moral universe—she is simultaneously victim of her father’s abuse and cruelty, and perpetrator of false testimony that condemns an innocent man to death. Her character illustrates how cycles of abuse and victimization perpetuate themselves, with abused individuals sometimes becoming complicit in harming others to preserve their own survival or avoid their abuser’s rage. Ewell’s willingness to force his daughter to commit perjury, to publicly humiliate her with invasive questions about the alleged assault, and to sacrifice whatever minimal prospects she might have for a normal life in order to cover up his own abuse demonstrates the absolute nature of his selfishness and moral bankruptcy. The father-daughter relationship also illuminates how patriarchal power structures and economic dependency trap women in abusive situations—Mayella has no resources, education, or opportunities that might allow her to escape her father’s control, making her completely vulnerable to his dominance. Through this relationship, Lee explores how individual evil like Ewell’s thrives in contexts of systemic inequality, poverty, and the absence of social support systems that might protect vulnerable individuals. The tragedy of Mayella’s situation adds depth to the novel’s examination of how racism and social injustice produce multiple victims across racial and class lines (Shields, 2006).
How Does Bob Ewell’s Character Compare to Other Antagonistic Forces in the Novel?
While Bob Ewell serves as the most explicit human antagonist in To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel presents multiple antagonistic forces that threaten justice, innocence, and moral progress, and comparing Ewell to these other forces illuminates the complexity of Lee’s moral vision. Unlike systemic racism or mob mentality, which operate as diffuse social forces, Ewell represents focused individual malice and conscious evil—he makes deliberate choices to lie, to destroy innocent people, and ultimately to commit murder, demonstrating personal moral responsibility rather than merely being swept along by cultural prejudices. This distinguishes him from characters like the members of the lynch mob who threaten Tom Robinson at the jail, who represent the danger of collective action and deindividuation but who retain enough moral conscience to be shamed and dispersed by Scout’s innocent appeals to their humanity. Ewell, by contrast, appears incapable of shame or moral appeal, making him a more purely evil figure than characters who act badly due to social pressure or unexamined prejudice (Lee, 1960).
Comparing Ewell to other unsympathetic characters in the novel also reveals his unique position as irredeemably villainous. Mrs. Dubose, despite her racism and cruel tongue, demonstrates moral courage in overcoming morphine addiction before death, earning Atticus’s respect and teaching Jem about true courage. The missionary ladies who gossip about the Maycomb’s Black community while claiming Christian charity are hypocritical but not actively evil, representing social prejudice rather than individual malice. Even the jury that convicts Tom Robinson, while culpable for injustice, represents collective failure and cultural conditioning rather than conscious evil—they are weak rather than wicked, unable to overcome their prejudices despite evidence but not actively seeking to destroy innocence for personal gain. Ewell stands apart from these characters through his combination of conscious malice, absolute lack of redeeming qualities, strategic manipulation of racist systems for personal benefit, and willingness to commit violence against the innocent. This makes him function as a symbol of pure evil within the novel’s moral framework, representing the active force of destruction and injustice against which Atticus’s principles and courage must struggle. His death at the novel’s climax thus represents the defeat of active evil, though the persistence of other characters’ prejudices and the permanent loss of Tom Robinson remind readers that individual evil exists within larger systems of injustice that survive even after particular villains are defeated (Murray, 2008).
What Does Bob Ewell’s Death Symbolize in the Novel’s Resolution?
Bob Ewell’s death during his attack on Jem and Scout provides the novel’s dramatic climax and carries significant symbolic weight regarding justice, protection of innocence, and the limits of legal systems in addressing evil. When Boo Radley intervenes to save the Finch children and kills Ewell in the process, the novel presents a form of extralegal justice that operates outside and in some ways against the official legal system that failed to protect Tom Robinson. Sheriff Heck Tate’s decision to declare that Ewell fell on his own knife rather than reveal Boo Radley’s involvement represents a conscious choice to subvert official legal processes in service of a higher justice—protecting Boo from the publicity and legal proceedings that would destroy his reclusive existence. This resolution raises complex moral questions about vigilante justice, the protection of innocence, and the appropriateness of operating outside legal systems even when those systems have proven inadequate or corrupt. Atticus’s initial resistance to this coverup, based on his commitment to legal process and transparency, demonstrates his principled consistency even when the law would require exposing his children’s rescuer to harmful consequences (Lee, 1960).
The symbolic significance of Ewell’s death extends to broader themes about the novel’s moral vision and its treatment of justice and evil. Ewell’s death represents the physical defeat of the antagonist, but it occurs only after Tom Robinson has already been killed and considerable damage has been inflicted on multiple innocents—Tom’s family, the Finch family, and arguably Mayella herself. This timing suggests that while individual evil can be defeated, its consequences persist and its victory is often partial before its ultimate defeat. The manner of Ewell’s death—killed while attacking children under cover of darkness—emphasizes his cowardice and villainy while providing poetic justice, as he dies in the act of attempting his most heinous crime. However, the fact that Boo Radley rather than any official authority must protect the children also suggests the inadequacy of social institutions and legal systems to protect innocence from determined evil. The community’s tacit acceptance of the sheriff’s coverup demonstrates collective recognition that legal processes sometimes serve injustice rather than justice, though this same recognition raises troubling questions about when extralegal actions become justified. Through Ewell’s death, Lee explores the tension between idealistic commitment to legal processes and pragmatic recognition that such processes sometimes fail to protect the innocent or punish the guilty, particularly when those systems are corrupted by racism and prejudice (Bloom, 2010).
How Does Bob Ewell Function as a Foil to Atticus Finch?
Bob Ewell serves as a direct foil to Atticus Finch throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, with their contrasting characteristics illuminating the novel’s central moral conflicts and thematic concerns. Where Atticus represents principle, integrity, compassion, and commitment to justice, Ewell embodies selfishness, dishonesty, cruelty, and the abuse of legal and social systems for personal gain. Atticus works within the legal system to defend an innocent man despite knowing he will likely lose and face community hostility, demonstrating courage and commitment to principle. Ewell manipulates the legal system to destroy an innocent man to cover his own crimes, demonstrating cowardice and moral bankruptcy. Atticus treats all people with respect regardless of race or social class, insisting that his children do likewise. Ewell exploits racial prejudice and social hierarchies to maintain his precarious sense of superiority and to victimize those more vulnerable than himself. These contrasts establish the novel’s moral framework, with Atticus and Ewell representing opposing poles of human character and social behavior (Lee, 1960).
The foil relationship extends to their roles as fathers, with their contrasting parenting styles highlighting broader themes about responsibility, education, and moral development. Atticus consistently models moral behavior for his children, explains his principles and reasoning, respects their intelligence and capacity for understanding, and prepares them to become ethical, thoughtful adults. He feeds, educates, and nurtures his children while teaching them empathy, courage, and commitment to justice. Ewell, by contrast, neglects his children’s basic needs, provides no education or moral guidance, abuses at least his daughter Mayella, and models dishonesty, violence, and racial hatred. He uses his children as tools in his schemes and shows no concern for their welfare or development. These contrasting parenting approaches demonstrate how individual character and family dynamics perpetuate either virtue or vice across generations, with Atticus raising children who will likely contribute to social progress and justice, while Ewell perpetuates cycles of ignorance, prejudice, and dysfunction. The foil relationship between these characters thus serves multiple literary functions: clarifying the novel’s moral themes, providing dramatic conflict, and demonstrating how individual choices about integrity, compassion, and responsibility shape not only personal character but also family dynamics and ultimately social conditions. Through this contrast, Lee argues that social progress depends on individuals choosing to embody principles like those Atticus represents rather than succumbing to the selfishness and hatred that Ewell exemplifies (Johnson, 1994).
What Lasting Impact Does Bob Ewell Have on the Novel’s Themes and Message?
Bob Ewell’s role as antagonist proves essential to Harper Lee’s exploration of racism, justice, moral courage, and the protection of innocence that form To Kill a Mockingbird’s central themes. Through Ewell’s false accusation and Tom Robinson’s subsequent conviction and death, Lee demonstrates how racism operates not merely as abstract prejudice but through specific acts of injustice committed by individuals willing to destroy innocent lives. Ewell’s character shows that maintaining white supremacy requires active participation from individuals who make conscious choices to lie, manipulate, and commit violence—racism is not simply a passive cultural inheritance but an actively perpetuated system that depends on people like Ewell to enforce racial hierarchies through intimidation and violence. This insight remains relevant to contemporary discussions about systemic racism, which operates both through institutional structures and through individual actors who implement and enforce discriminatory practices. Ewell’s characterization thus supports Lee’s argument that combating racism requires not only changing laws and institutions but also cultivating individual moral courage and integrity (Lee, 1960).
The lasting impact of Ewell’s antagonistic role also extends to the novel’s treatment of justice, innocence, and moral courage in the face of evil. His false accusation destroys Tom Robinson despite overwhelming evidence of innocence, demonstrating that legal systems can be corrupted by prejudice and that justice is not automatically guaranteed by institutional processes. This theme resonates with ongoing contemporary concerns about justice system failures, particularly regarding racial bias in criminal proceedings. Ewell’s attempt to murder Jem and Scout demonstrates that speaking truth and defending principle can provoke violent retaliation, yet Atticus’s continued commitment to his principles despite this danger illustrates the novel’s central message about moral courage. The novel suggests through Ewell’s antagonism that evil is real, persistent, and dangerous, but that it must be opposed through principled action regardless of personal cost. Finally, Ewell’s ultimate defeat—killed while attacking children—affirms the novel’s cautiously optimistic message that innocence can be protected and evil defeated, though often at significant cost and through means more complex than simple faith in legal or social institutions. Through Bob Ewell’s comprehensive antagonistic role, Lee creates a morally serious examination of racism, justice, and human character that has sustained the novel’s relevance across more than six decades since its publication (Shields, 2006).
Conclusion
Bob Ewell functions as a complex and effective antagonist in To Kill a Mockingbird, serving simultaneously as immediate threat to specific characters, symbolic representation of systemic racism and social dysfunction, and embodiment of pure moral evil against which the novel’s heroic characters must struggle. His false accusation against Tom Robinson drives the central plot while exposing the mechanisms through which racism operates—not merely as abstract prejudice but through conscious choices by individuals willing to destroy innocents to maintain racial hierarchies and personal advantage. Ewell’s characterization demonstrates how individual moral bankruptcy intersects with systemic injustice, with his personal vices of dishonesty, violence, cowardice, and vindictiveness finding expression through and amplification by racist social structures that enable even the most degraded white person to destroy a respectable Black person’s life.
Through careful attention to Ewell’s motivations, actions, relationships, and ultimate fate, Harper Lee creates an antagonist who illuminates the novel’s central themes about justice, courage, innocence, and human nature. His contrast with Atticus Finch establishes clear moral poles while avoiding simplistic characterization—Ewell is not merely a cartoon villain but a psychologically credible portrait of how resentment, insecurity, and moral failure can combine with social prejudice to produce tragic injustice. His relationship with Mayella reveals how individual evil perpetuates cycles of victimization, while his attack on Jem and Scout demonstrates the physical danger posed by unchecked hatred and resentment. Bob Ewell’s death provides dramatic resolution and poetic justice while raising complex questions about legal processes, extralegal action, and the protection of innocence that continue to resonate with contemporary readers engaging with ongoing struggles for racial justice and institutional reform.
References
Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2010). Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Bloom’s Literary Criticism.
Johnson, C. D. (1994). To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries. Twayne Publishers.
Lee, H. (1960). To Kill a Mockingbird. J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Murray, J. (2008). More than one way to (mis)read a Mockingbird. Southern Quarterly, 45(3), 57-74.
Shields, C. J. (2006). Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Henry Holt and Company.