One good way to learn the essential elements of a genre is to write a parody. The Onion offers one based on the classic To Kill a Mockingbird:

I Would Say To Kill A Mockingbird Captured The Most Interesting Part Of Our Lives

By Atticus Finch

As I get older and reflect on my life, my mind always drifts back to the time I defended handyman Tom Robinson against those trumped-up, racially motivated charges of rape. What a time it was. So much happened in that year and a half. Lessons were learned, innocence was lost, and a child put her fear of people different from herself behind her. There’s no denying it was a narratively gripping time.

We were fortunate that an important American novelist about to make her debut was around to take it all down as my daughter, Scout, told it. At the time, it never occurred to us that those events would make for a compelling look at race and class in the United States—perhaps even a fable for our times, playing out in an insignificant Southern town but with wide-ranging thematic implications for the deeper issues of prejudice and civil rights during a period of intense social upheaval, and all that.

Honestly, if this book had been written at almost any other time, it would have been pretty damn boring.

After old Bob Ewell closed that chapter in our lives by falling on his knife, the kids settled into their schoolwork and joined glee club. Jem played baseball for a while, but he didn’t really like it. Sometimes they’d drop in at the Radley place to pay their regards to Arthur. They even stopped calling him Boo. After a couple years he died of pneumonia. Or was it diabetes? I suppose I was saddened that he didn’t live to see another adventure—but then again, how many chances does one reclusive idiot man-child usually get to stand up for justice in the face of small-minded ignorance, and change the course of a community forever?

Scout’s gone through some changes of her own. All fairly standard. Back when I was arguing that case, she was so young and spirited. Always fighting for what she thought was right, bless her heart. I thought she’d go to college and get a degree in journalism, like she talked about, but she dropped out of Tulane after a year and moved back to Maycomb and became a waitress.

Read the rest of the parody.

I have to admire a piece that can skewer a novel, book reviews, study guide summaries, and memoirs, all at the same time.

Posted Wed, 21 May 2008 00:01:51 and filed under Literature, Humor, eNotes. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.