Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory

Harper Lee and Truman Capote, two of the greatest 20th century authors, were once prodigious best friends. And best friends share everything; their thoughts, their dreams, but most importantly, their ideas. So could it be possible that Capote, a prolific writer, could have played a role in writing Lee’s esteemed novel, To Kill a Mockingbird? Doubtful. Through comparisons of Lee’s only work to Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” it can be seen that despite similarities, these friends’ works differ too greatly in the way they set the tone, emphasize their themes, and utilize imagery for them to have worked together on her novel.

The first area, where Capote and Lee vary, is their use of style to create tone. Due to two extremely diverse plotlines, the tones themselves contrast with one being lighthearted and dreamy, the other worried and critical. However, both have a sense of nostalgia coupled with a childlike simplicity. Their stylistic distinctions stem directly from different tense. While To Kill a Mockingbird is in the past tense, “A Christmas Memory” is in the present. This is important because both are told as flashbacks in first person from the older narrator. Capote’s present tense recollection immerses the reader as if it is being relived. The very way he starts the story is by laying out the scene: “Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago” (p.145). By using the word ‘imagine’ the scene is conveyed as pensive and dreamy. The true nostalgia strikes most powerfully at the end, when the narrator looks back at what he has lost. Lee tells her story a different way. Her entire novel is based on an adult reflecting on a previous experience. The way she thought, the way she acted; it’s...

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...y analyzing a famous work of each, it can be said that not only did they lead very different lives, they were very different writers. To Kill a Mockingbird fluctuates in a tone which is inferred through the behavior of the characters for the narrator’s observations are basic. “A Christmas Memory” sets up each scene with an abundance of vivid imagery and thoughts, while drastically changing moods with simple syntax shifts. Yet with all the literary techniques and figurative language, the subtle theme of Capote’s story ended up making a much simpler tale. His best friend Lee’s one novel made history for the powerful way she set-up and presented a theme of prejudice and judgment. And that is the truest differentiation of the two friends’ writing, for if the very way they structure their pieces varies so greatly, how could one have slipped their style into the other’s?