Killing the Mockingbird

I’m still here! I haven’t blogged for far too long, mainly because I’ve been finishing off my year in France, doing exams and moving back to the UK. But now I’ve got a long summer ahead of me so expect many posts to come!

It was probably the recent news about Michael Gove’s proposed changes to the national English Literature curriculum that kick-started me back into action. If you’re from the UK and haven’t been living under a rock for the past week, you’ll have heard that the education secretary proposed to ban American classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men from the GCSE syllabus in an apparent attempt to promote British literature. On second thoughts, it’s probably the ensuing backlash that we’ve heard more about rather than the actual proposals.

I accept that many people may be ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ of criticising Gove for the sake of it, and stories of this kind relating to politicians have a tendency to completely blow up until something new comes and redirects our short-lived attention.

But while I try to understand these views and see through balanced lenses, I can’t help being critical of the suggestions. In fact, the more I reflect on it, the more it frustrates me. It’s far from an original argument, but I can’t leave it out: it is often the 20^th-century American classics that inspire sixteen-year-olds to study literature to a higher degree, or at least to take more of an interest in reading. Don’t get me wrong, I value the importance of studying classic novels by Dickens and Austen and consider it imperative that Shakespeare retains a central place in the study of English Literature (something for another time; I could talk for hours on Shakespeare!) but so many students say that it’s the more modern American (or British) writers dealing with new ideas that provoked an initial reaction in them. Look at the incredible tribute we’ve seen to the American author (and so much more) Maya Angelou over the last few days following her death.

If Harper Lee and co. encourage young people like me and so many more to pick up a book or even to pursue writing seriously, then she has succeeded in her aims and we should embrace it, not turn our backs on it.

The central themes of the works of these American authors are often colossal: racism; violence; poverty; injustice; the ‘American Dream’. It’s not only a question of literature but also of history, society and progression and it’s essential to educate students on these issues. I love Jane Austen as much as the next bookworm but much of her work is so highly idealised – we aren’t all going to find Mr Darcy and live happily ever after. So we need these grittier novels with their imperfect characters and their social challenges to give us a dose of real life and allow us to appreciate the often appalling situations of the past and indeed those that still exist today. Surely it is only with this understanding that we can continue to fight against the issues which these vital authors brought to light.