Introduction

For many readers who have acquainted themselves with Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”, prior to reading critical reviews that praise this book as the work of genius, it often does not make a whole lot of sense that for her “masterpiece”, Lee was being given a Pulitzer Prize, despite novel’s dubious literary value (author is clearly having a hard time, while trying to logically interconnect Part 1 with Part 2). What also seems to be quite odd, is the fact that it has only taken one year, after “To Kill a Mockingbird” was being published, for the Hollywood producers to decide to make a film, based on Lee’s novel, even though that at this time, book’s actual popularity was not exactly reaching the sky, as literary critics are now trying to convince us. And finally – no serious literary studies have ever been conducted, on the subject of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, despite overwhelming majority’s of literary critics referring to Lee’s book as “insightful”, “progressive” and “fresh sounding”. Given the fact that analysed book was being written at the time when so-called “civil rights movement” was gaining a momentum, it appears that “To Kill a Mockingbird” should be discussed within a context of author’s ability to utilize her understanding of the essence of socio-political dynamics, for the purpose of generating a commercial profit, rather then a literary work, which was simply intended to relate Lee’s childhood experiences to readers, as it is being often suggested nowadays. Therefore, it will not an exaggeration, on our part, to refer to “To Kill a Mockingbird” as a literary piece that was meant to add an emotional appeal to the ideological dogmas of neo-Liberalism, as political philosophy, closely associated with White Americans being slowly deprived of their existential vitality. It is not simply a coincidence that the main elements of novel’s plot (racist White farmers, representing evil, wrongly accused Black man, innocent children, a “progressive” shyster with clearly Semitic facial features), are now being incorporated in contemporary Hollywood movies, meant to popularize “tolerance” among Americans. However, after having served its original purpose of disarming White Americans psychologically, Lee’s novel has now fallen out of favour with the hawks of political correctness, as such that contains “racial slur” and ridicules the ideological tenets of modern feminism. Apparently, despite the fact that in sixties “To Kill a Mockingbird” was considered as “progressive” enough, it is no longer the case today, because Blacks in Lee’s novel are being presented as simply an agricultural workers, which contradicts modern Medias’ and Hollywood’s portrayal of African-Americans and Hispanics as solemnly software designers, police officers, progressive politicians and American Presidents. In other words – Lee novel’s “high literary value” is largely a myth, because it appears to have relativistic subtleties. If “To Kill a Mockingbird” was removed from public libraries and stopped being showed up students’ throats, as “compulsory reading material”, it would be forgotten within a matter of very short time. Therefore, in this paper, we will discuss “To Kill a Mockingbird” as what it really is – a literary reflection of idealistic White individual’s inability to come to terms with objective reality, which corresponds to the essence of neo-Liberalism as degenerative socio-political doctrine.