Harper Lee (1926-) was born in Monroeville, Alabama, the daughter of a former newspaper editor and owner who had also served as a state senator and practiced as a lawyer (Liukkonen and Pesonen 1). Lee studied law at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949 and spent a year in England studying at Oxford University. In her only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee drew heavily upon her own life and experiences in creating the characters of Scout, Atticus Finch, and Dill ("Harper Lee Biography" 1-2). Much of the novel, consequently, reflects Harper Lee's own views on such issues as race, itself a defining concern in the American South when Lee was a young girl and adolescent.
There is little doubt that Atticus Finch is meant to represent Lee's own father, and the trial of an African-American that is at the heart of the novel is meant to reflect (if not immediately repeat) that of the infamous Scottsboro Trial in which the charge was rape (Liukkonen and Pesonen 1). In both instances, the charge was rape, the defendants were African-American males, and the accusers were white women.
Scout is clearly meant to represent Lee, who also enjoyed a close relationship with her father. Just as Scout learned to read before entering school (Lee 47-48), so did Harper Lee learn much about the law, life, and literature from her father.
Another character in the book, that of Dill, is based upon one of Lee's closest childhood friends, Truman Capote, then known as Truman Persons. Lee, again like Scout, was "tougher than many of the boys" and as a child, "stepped up to serve as Truman's protector" ("Harper Lee Biography" 1).
Dill, like Capote, arrives in town only during the summer. Dill and Capote as well as Lee and Scout share other characteristics. Capote was virtually abandoned by his parents and Lee functioned with a deeply committed father and a mother who suffered from mental illness that was
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