Francine Prose's criticism of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is vague and lacks the necessary elements to prove her point. She puts this American literary classic in the category of books she qualifies as "of dubious literary merit," "overwrought," and "depressing," yet she is not able to support the claims she makes with any quotes, facts, or sources to adequately prove her point of why the novel belongs with novels categorized with these awful titles. This makes me question her reliability on the topic.
Prose believes that "To Kill a Mockingbird" does not have much to offer in the way of deeper moral understanding of other human beings. "To Kill a Mockingbird" shows the lack of understanding we hold for each other as humans and our quickness to judge people based on others opinions. Francine Prose also acts as if she is unable to see the worth in reading stories about events that occurred in the past but history tends to repeat itself and the only prevention for the repetition is dissemination of information on the topic. Hence indicating the value of this type of literature where today's students are concerned.
Prose claims that we, as the reader, will, "never harbor the racist attitudes espoused by the lowlifes in the novel," yet we still stumble upon nearly the same problems with racism today. From police brutality to murder cases, the issue of racism stands strong in it's rightful position of blights on America. In reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" students are able to see how little progress we made from the 1960s to present day. Ms. Prose says that these issues are "black and white" in this novel but if students cannot understand what is happening in the book they won't be able to understand the meaning behind it which is the important thing in trying to promote change. When an individual person reads a book they will have a different interpretation of the content than the next.
