Hit the Road to the Literary World. When Fiction Becomes a Journey You Can’t Escape

“Hit the road” they said. Explore. See the world. But what if the world I’m interested in isn’t the one with flights or mountains or seaside towns, but a place where the streets are made of paragraphs and the skies are filled with metaphors? What if my journey didn’t begin with a suitcase, but with a library card? That’s how I ended up in Maycomb, Alabama. A town where summer is endless, justice is unpredictable, and children ask better questions than adults do. Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” became the start of my literary road trip. And it wasn’t just a chapter in a syllabus,  it was a map of emotions I didn’t know I had.

At some point, the characters from “To Kill a Mockingbird” stopped living only in Maycomb; they started showing up in my life. Mrs. Dubose used to scare me, but now I think she’s trying to change. Maybe grumpy people just need time. She even smiles now, and once, she apologized for her past behavior - that has to count for something. And honestly, each of us probably has their own Mrs. Dubose in real life. Someone we disliked at first glance:, too strict, too grumpy, too different but who has turned out to be more human than we expected. Maybe even kind. Maybe even struggling with something we couldn’t see. That’s another thing books like this teach us: to look again, more carefully this time.  Boo Radley, once terrifying, turned out to be far more of a mysterious neighbor than a monster. Actually, he’s nothing like the rumors said. Atticus told me he was good, and I believed him. Atticus always answers my questions, even when I ask five in a row. He might secretly regret saying “there’s no such thing as a stupid question,” but he never admits it. Jem thinks I wear him down. Lately, Atticus has started saying, “I’ll answer that later,” and then vanishes. Maybe “later” means never, or maybe it means after graduation, which seems to be his personal finish line. Miss Maudie is still the best. She treats us like equals, unlike some teachers I won’t name. She never sugarcoats things, never pretends children are clueless. Even Mrs. Caroline appeared in my life, though not quite like in the book. She’s still a bit lost, still dictates a lot, and some students struggle to keep up  but this version of her actually likes me. Sometimes she gives me a little wink or side-eye during class. Either way, I appreciate being noticed. These characters don't just stay in the book. They follow you to school, sit beside you in the cafeteria, walk past you in the hallway on your way to meet Dill. They become part of your real world and occasionally make you wonder whether your teacher might secretly be a hero.

Okay, fine. It might sound a bit like I’m losing it. Characters from a novel showing up in school? Talking about graduation with Atticus and getting winks from Mrs. Caroline? Some would call that a mild case of literary-induced schizophrenia. Maybe I should start carrying a diagnosis slip that says: “Warning: may confuse fiction with reality.” But honestly, would that be so bad? At least my hallucinations have good morals and decent vocabulary. I mean, if you’re going to lose touch with reality, isn’t it better to be followed around by Boo Radley than by, say, a geometry test? Personally, I prefer ethical ghosts to existential dread.

I read “To Kill a Mockingbird” just a few days after I turned eighteen, when people start telling you, with a slightly smug smile, “You’re not a kid anymore.” At first, it sounds like a compliment. But soon, it begins to feel like a warning. You’re suddenly expected to know how the world works, how to make decisions, how to grow up, but no one tells you what that actually means. It’s like being given the keys to a car you don’t know how to drive. In the book, Jem says growing up is like breaking out of a cocoon. You become a butterfly, but you lose the shell that kept you safe. And I get that. We start noticing injustice everywhere, not just in Maycomb, but in our own lives. That helpless feeling when you see something wrong but can’t do anything about it? I’ve felt that. It’s the same thing I feel when thinking about climate change. I can’t force people to recycle or use less plastic, and honestly, it’s probably good I don’t have that kind of power  because I would absolutely use it. Maybe too much. To grow up is to realize that the world is broken and no bandage will ever quite fix it. We’re lucky, many of us who live in Europe, to have food, heat and books. But knowing others don’t have that doesn’t make the guilt go away. If anything, it sharpens it. Sometimes, I think ignorance really was bliss. Maybe Adam and Eve were better off before they tasted the fruit. Maybe Izabela Łęcka from ”Lalka” had the right idea staying in her little glass bubble, protected from harsh truths. Childhood illusions melt under the weight of reality, like Jem and Scout’s snowman under the Alabama sun.

United International Picture. “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Uip.com, 2025, www.uip.com/. Accessed 22 June 2025.

And that’s why “To Kill a Mockingbird” matters. It didn’t just show me Maycomb, it showed me myself. I recognized my fear, my frustration, my longing for things to be simpler. The book gave me words for feelings I hadn’t named yet. Someone once said that a book isn’t a closed world - it’s a web of relationships. This one didn’t stay on the shelf. It followed me around. It became part of my reality. And maybe growing up means learning to live with books like those that hurt and heal you at the same time.

So yes, maybe I do talk to fictional characters. But only the well-written ones. And frankly, I trust Atticus Finch’s advice more than half the self-help books out there. Besides, my real-world Atticus is a great person too, someone I genuinely enjoy talking to. I just hope he remembers me for the next fifty years.

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Bibliography

United International Picture. “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Uip.com, 2025, www.uip.com/. Accessed 22 June 2025.