Reading To Kill a Mockingbird two generations later: the graphic novel

Abstract

ABSTRACT To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, long considered an American classic and one of the most beloved books for adolescents, has raised much controversy since its publication in 1960. Its adaptation as a graphic novel by Fordham and Lee offers a reinterpretation of the story. It highlights the racial tensions and social inequality, and it shows the consequences of isolation and marginalisation of characters along the lines of race, gender and class, but it does so through the lens of entrapment. These motifs are shown in the panel structure, the choice of colours and the framing of individual panels. The refreshed version better fits the changed sociopolitical circumstances and it better reflects the expectations of a new generation of readers, reaching for the story over sixty years later.