The theme of maturation in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Nelle Harper Lee

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of narrative and genre features of the famous work of Nelle Harper Lee ‟To Kill a Mockingbird”. It considers such categories of poetics as composition, chronotope and a system of characters. The study analyses the theme of maturation and the traits of ‟southern noir”, traditional and innovative characteristics of the initiation novel. Due to these peculiarities the American writer is not only able to focus on the inner life of the main heroine, but also to present the historical and cultural background of the narrative, as well as to create expressive psychological portraits of the characters. The conclusion is made about the transfer of ideas from human personality formation and maturation to the ethno-racial context, the formation of a specific model of initiation in the American literature. The process of migration of adult literature in children’s literature is noted both at the level of individual storylines and entire narratives. The novel by Harper Lee contains the traits of the initiation novel, as the main semantic dominant theme is maturation through overcoming challenges (social injustice, cruelty, ambivalence of the categories of good and evil). The concept of becoming a person in the work of the writer refers to the origins of the national consciousness: the interaction of nature and civilization, natural and artificial, as well as aesthetic categories of fiction and reality.