Editing To Kill a Mockingbird (section)

=== Class ===
{{Quote box |width=30em |align=right  |quote=One of the amazing things about the writing in ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' is the economy with which Harper Lee delineates not only race—white and black within a small community—but class. I mean ''different kinds'' of black people and white people both, from poor white trash to the upper crust—the whole social fabric.|salign=right
|source=—[[Lee Smith (fiction author)|Lee Smith]]<ref>Murphy, p. 178.</ref>}}

In a 1964 interview, Lee remarked that her aspiration was "to be&nbsp;... the [[Jane Austen]] of South Alabama."<ref name="blackall">Blackall, Jean "Valorizing the Commonplace: Harper Lee's Response to Jane Austen" in ''On Harper Lee: Essays and Reflections'' Alice Petry (ed.). University of Tennessee Press (2007). {{ISBN|978-1-57233-578-3}}</ref> Both Austen and Lee challenged the social status quo and valued individual worth over social standing. When Scout embarrasses her poorer classmate, Walter Cunningham, at the Finch home one day, Calpurnia, their black cook, chastises and punishes her for doing so.<ref>Lee, p. 27.</ref> Atticus respects Calpurnia's judgment, and later in the book even stands up to his sister, the formidable Aunt Alexandra, when she strongly suggests they fire Calpurnia.<ref>Lee, p. 155.</ref> One writer notes that Scout, "in Austenian fashion", satirizes women with whom she does not wish to identify.<ref name="shackelford"/> Literary critic Jean Blackall lists the priorities shared by the two authors: "affirmation of order in society, obedience, courtesy, and respect for the individual without regard for status".<ref name="blackall"/>

Scholars argue that Lee's approach to class and race was more complex "than ascribing racial prejudice primarily to 'poor white trash'&nbsp;... Lee demonstrates how issues of gender and class intensify prejudice, silence the voices that might challenge the existing order, and greatly complicate many Americans' conception of the causes of racism and segregation."<ref name="hovet">Hovet, Theodore and Grace-Ann (Fall 2001). "'Fine Fancy Gentlemen' and 'Yappy Folk': Contending Voices in To Kill a Mockingbird", ''Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South'', '''40''' pp. 67–78.</ref>  Lee's use of the middle-class narrative voice is a literary device that allows an intimacy with the reader, regardless of class or cultural background, and fosters a sense of [[nostalgia]].  Sharing Scout and Jem's perspective, the reader is allowed to engage in relationships with the conservative [[Antebellum era|antebellum]] Mrs. Dubose; the lower-class Ewells, and the Cunninghams who are equally poor but behave in vastly different ways; the wealthy but ostracized Mr. Dolphus Raymond; and Calpurnia and other members of the black community.  The children internalize Atticus' admonition not to judge someone until they have walked around in that person's skin, gaining a greater understanding of people's motives and behavior.<ref name="hovet"/>