to kill a mockingbird

[rob carman]

Good morning,

In Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mocking Bird” (set in ~1936, written in the late 1950s and published in 1960) there is a character named Miss Maudie. One passage in Chapter 5 reads:

“She loved everything that grew in God's earth, even the weeds. With one exception. If she found a blade of nut grass in her yard it was like the Second Battle of the Marne: she swooped down upon it with a tin tub and subjected it to blasts from beneath with a poisonous substance she said was so powerful it'd kill us all if we didn't stand out of the way.

"Why can't you just pull it up?" I asked, after witnessing a prolonged campaign against a blade not three inches high.

"Pull it up, child, pull it up?" She picked up the limp sprout and squeezed her thumb up its tiny stalk. Microscopic grains oozed out. "Why, one sprig of nut grass can ruin a whole yard. Look here. When it comes fall this dries up and the wind blows it all over Maycomb County! Miss Maudie's face likened such an occurrence unto an Old " Testament pestilence.”

My question is why did Lee allude allude to 2nd Marne, why not Gettysburg or Verdun? Is it a “generic” reference to the horrors of war, recognized by Americans perhaps in the way the Somme might be regarded by Britons (and others) or is there something specific about the 2nd Marne that makes Lee say Miss Maudie swooped down on the nut grass with a tin tub and subjected it to blasts from beneath with a poisonous substance?

Rob.

[rmcguirk]

Rob

Perhaps because the 2nd Battle of the Marne was in the US often considered the “turning point” in WWI and American troops were involved in it. I remember as a boy (mid- to late1950s) reading a very interesting article about US involvement on the Marne in 1918 in an iconic magazine of the period called “American Heritage”. It could be that Harper Lee read it too. That was presumably when she was writing the book.

Russell