To Kill a Mockingbird written by award winning author Harper Lee, is a very confronting novel about a young girl who tries to understand the complexity of the “adult world” as well as deal with serious issues including racism and hypocrisy. German novelist Franz Kafka once said “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that would wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?” Kafka would definitely appreciate To Kill a Mockingbird because it was a very thought provoking novel that causes readers to rethink the world they live in today. Harper Lee has used many narrative conventions in To Kill a Mockingbird that has softened a very serious and harsh plot. She has cleverly separated the novel into two distinct halves with separate themes and ideas on each side. The first part is narrated in first person by a young, naïve narrator with little understanding of the world around her. The second is still written in first person but from an older, more experienced perspective. In the first part, the novel provides hints of the “adult world” but children act like normal children and don’t notice the serious issues occurring around them in the town of Maycomb. An example from the text is Scout fighting fellow peers over minor disputes or finding gifts in the knothole down the road. Scout, Jem and Dill also believe that Boo Radley is a crazy, mysterious man and think it would be a fun game to lure him out of his house. The second half of the novel involves a much darker and intense plot where the children are trying to understand the complexity of society and major social and cultural problems. An example is Scout running into the mob of drunk men who were intending to lynch Tom Robinson, her father’s defendant. Scout starts to talk personally with one of the mob members “Hey Mr Cunningham, how’s your entailment going?” Scout didn’t understand