To Kill a Mockingbird

What a fabulous classic! I have really enjoyed reading “To kill a mockingbird”. Even though I have to say I managed only on my second approach. At first I felt misplaced by the unfamiliar setting and, somehow difficult to me as a non-native, language. However, the further I went, the more familiar the characters, places and situations became. What I found particularly astonishing is how seemingly foreign world and problems started more and more to resemble the world I lived in before and the one I live in right now. How through a very specific issues the author was able to transmit universal truths about life, society, how it shapes us and how it numbs us. This book teaches us something, which we really need nowadays (and I am sure we always needed and will need) - the world is not just black and white. It is neither good or bad. Situations without its proper context can be misleading or even meaningless. Judging people based on prejudices or emotions will mostly do harm to them and to ourselves. Most of the deeply humanistic soul of this book is transmitted through one of the main characters. A man who stands firmly behind his beliefs, even if these beliefs stand in a stark contrast to most of the world around him. He shows us that basic human rights are a principal value and how even good people behave erratically or confrontational because of emotions and certain social pressures. And that sometimes we should judge them because of it. Fear mingles with with our behaviour and treatment of others in a nasty way. One sentence, however banal it sounds, he repeats a number of times is “Do not worry, it is not time to worry yet.” I know that it seems like nothing really outstanding, but in a specific context it shows the core of the stoic philosophy and an approach which can save us many unwanted and unjust situations.