Two literary stars left us last week. Harper Lee and Umberto Eco sadly passed away at 90 and 84, respectively, leaving two everlasting masterpieces behind: “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Name of the Rose.”

I still vividly remember the day when I first watched the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird” based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel in 1964, when I was a vulnerable high school student. I was enchanted by the splendid acting of Gregory Peck, who superbly portrayed the widowed father, Atticus Finch, and the two child actors who played Jem and Scout impeccably. I was so fascinated by the movie that I immediately rushed to buy the novel. I could not put the book down until I finished it. From that day on, my life changed forever.

Literary critics usually describe “To kill a Mockingbird” as a novel about racial prejudice. But there is much more to it. The novel depicts virtually all kinds of human prejudices: prejudice against the poor, the divorced, the widowed, the unmarried, the old, and children from broken homes.

The novel was set in the 1930s when Americans suffered from the Great Depression, and racial discrimination was still rampant in the South. At that time, people unjustly blamed innocent outsiders for their predicament. In the novel, Atticus tells his children, “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” He goes on, “Mockingbirds just sing their hearts out for us.” Lee uses mockingbirds as a symbol of people who become victims of prejudices, such as ethnic minorities and outsiders.

Atticus also tells his daughter, Scout, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” It means we should try to understand others by being in their shoes before criticizing them. After watching the movie and reading the novel, I decided to become a prejudice-free, understanding man. Ever since, my life has been colorful, embracing cultural and racial diversity.

When I watched the movie “The Name of the Rose” in 1986, I was also inspired by the profound messages it conveyed and mesmerized by the superb acting of Sean Connery and Christian Slater, who played a Franciscan friar, William, and his novice Adso. I immediately rushed to the bookstore to buy Umberto Eco’s novel, and read it eagerly. The novel was a page-turner and as fascinating as the film. “The Name of the Rose,” too, changed my life forever.

Reading the novel, I came to realize that I should be neither stubbornly self-righteous nor blindly dogmatic. Eco portrays the Ven. Jorge as a man of utmost self-righteousness and blind beliefs. He is physically blind as well. In order to uphold his convictions, the physically and spiritually blind man kills people without remorse. In the novel, Eco warns us that clinging to the absolute truth can be dangerous because it would make our mind hardened and monochromatic.

Perhaps that is why Eco parodies Sherlock Holmes in “The Name of the Rose” by juxtaposing him with the main character William. In the beginning of the novel, William, just like Holmes, is quite confident in his own ability to read signs. Later, however, William realizes that signs and appearances can be deceptive and thus unreliable.  

In the author’s preface, Eco states that his novel is an Italian translation of a French translation of the original work written by Adso in Latin in the late 14th century. By arguing so, Eco implies that a translation is not inferior to the original work and that there is no such thing as the absolute truth, just like there is no absolutely truthful original text.

The title of the novel came from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” In the tragic story of star-crossed lovers, Juliet laments that she and Romeo are from warring families and says, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.” Juliet implies that a name is nothing but a hollow convention. Besides, in this phrase, Shakespeare clandestinely parodied the smelly Rose Theater, which was a rival of the Globe Theater to which he belonged. Why, then, stick to one absolute truth?

Someone once asked me what novels I would take with me if there were a fire in my house. I answered him without hesitation, “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Name of the Rose.” The former was a powerful indictment of our prejudice against “others” and the latter was a profound insight into our society full of self-righteous people who are convinced that only they are right and all others wrong.

If we assign these two novels to our students as part of graduation requirements, our society would surely become a better place to live in.   

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and the president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. -- Ed.