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Blog > Thoughts > Other's Thoughts > Chloe's Thoughts > To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

Written by Chloe on Monday, January 4, 2010

I apologise to everyone for throwing in an obscure reference to the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" in last month’s post, Ruminations on Sexuality, without giving any clue as to why I find relevance to BIID in the story. This post is to rectify that.

The movie is based on the novel by Harper Lee, which I confess to not having read. I shall try to explain how I relate to the story, without giving away too much of the plot. I may have some details of dialog wrong, and I’ve never been more than an average English literature student; so I beg your indulgence in this.

The story is told from the point of view of a woman looking back at formative events of her life when she was six and seven years old. The girl is an inquisitive androgynous tomboy known as "Scout" even though that is not her female name. It is easy for me to identify with the character from the outset.

Another point of identification concerns something that happened to me when I was six years old. I befriended a four year old boy with congenital intellectual impairment. He is still my friend. A key theme of the movie is the evolution of Scout’s interaction with Boo Radley, a person with similar impairment.

Boo is essentially unknown to his neighbours, except in so far that he is known to be different. Because of this he is seen to be a monster by kids and adults alike; referred to as a dangerous maniac. Scout questions these assertions. In fact she questions a great many things.

The reference to mockingbirds comes early in the story, from Scout’s father, Atticus: "It is a sin to kill a mockingbird. They sing their hearts out for us". The implication is that they are the innocents. For me they are symbolic of anybody who is different, through no fault of their own; yes, like we with BIID.

There are multiple parallel themes in the story, linked by a common thread. That thread is stated early on by Atticus: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view; until you climb inside of his skin, walk around in it".

The story is epic, and I’ll not get into details. One of the parallel themes concerns racial bigotry. There are some things concerning physical disability, poverty, various life circumstances, etc. They are all tied together by the idea of how to interact and get along with people who are different from oneself.

I’ll skip to the end. Scout makes it clear that she understands the metaphor of the mockingbird as it refers to Boo Radley. The adult Scout narrates "Boo was our neighbour". My friend who I met when I was six was also our neighbour. Wasn’t Jesus asked "Who is our neighbour?"?

Scout holds Boo’s hand as they walk together to his porch. She narrates "One time Atticus said "You never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them." Just standing on the Radley porch was enough".

Wow! That always gets to me. Standing on the porch is enough. In fact it is all you can do. Despite this being pure metaphor I find it amusing that I stood on my friend’s porch so many times when I was a kid.

There is a link back to the very beginning of the story, when Scout narrates that, this being 1932, the nation was told "There is nothing to fear except fear itself". She was taught to be afraid of Boo, but found out that the fear was groundless.

So, what does this all have to do with BIID? Quite a few things in my opinion:

We acknowledge to ourselves, and are sometimes told by outsiders, that we don’t know what it’s like to be paraplegic (or whatever your flavor is). True. In order to do that we would have to walk around in their shoes. Don’t you just love ironic metaphors! However, we CAN stand on their porch (more irony). How do you find out what it’s like to have paraplegia? You ask. You don’t make assumptions. I think this is relatively easy for people with BIID. It seems that most of us are genuinely caring about people with disabilities; and we are genuinely interested. Once I share a few of my own vulnerabilities (got plenty of those!) I find that people with paralysis are quite willing to share what it’s like to walk around in their shoes (just can’t leave that metaphor alone!). I can hardly wait to walk around in their shoes (okay I’ll stop it!).

There is also the inverse aspect. How are other people going to be accepting of us? We with BIID are different too. We are mockingbirds. We didn’t choose to be this way. How can we enable others to stand on our porch? Well, I don’t think it’s that difficult when dealing with someone who has reached the level of social maturity that Scout attained when she was seven. That’s pretty precocious in my opinion. A lot of people, including myself, don’t get there until adulthood. Some people never get there. For grown ups, straightforward honesty about BIID should be sufficient explanation.

What about those who have not yet reached the level of social maturity so brilliantly described by Harper Lee? We sporadically see such as these making comments about us; sometimes on this website. They make assumptions about us. They don’t know us. They don’t ask us. They make no attempt to stand on our porch. This is what prompted me to suggest that they might like to see the movie and give it some thought. How are we to regard such people? Well, this is a problem of social development. These people are therefore developmentally challenged. If I can have compassion towards myself for having been so slow in social development, then I must also have compassion for others similarly afflicted.

Tags: BIID, Compassion, Impairment, Mockingbirds, Paralysis, Paraplegia

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