Steps for Analysis
Locate the quotation to see if it is prefacing a whole text or a section, to identify it as an epigraph.
Read the epigraph over multiple times and try to analyze it for any meanings it contains within itself
Read the text that follows the epigraph, considering what themes are contained within it
Look back to the epigraph and compare the themes contained within the quote itself and the following text
Look for connections between the two, considering the reasons why the author included the quote
Potential questions to consider
What is the purpose of the quote that is used as an epigraph?
What is the background of the quote? Who is the speaker?
Does the epigraph relate to one specific character in the text it prefaces or the text as a whole?
Analysis
(Prefacing To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee)
“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”
-The Old Benchers of Inner Temple by Charles Lamb
This quote by Charles Lamb from his essay “The Old Benchers of Inner Temple” prefaces the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The quote is multifaceted in its use, and can be analyzed from multiple different angles. First off, it immediately imparts on the reader than lawyers will in fact be a topic in the novel. Secondly and less obviously, the epigraph tells the reader that childhood innocence will play a role in the story, and it may be related to the lawyer characters or those who wish to be lawyers (Jem). The use of the quote also acts as a way to set the tone for the novel. The quote has a somewhat comical and cynical tone, as through the use of the words “I suppose”, Lamb ironically emphasizes the common stereotype of the “inhumanity” of lawyers. To Kill A Mockingbird has a similarly ironic tone, using its unique POV (a young child, Scout) to comment on the citizens of Maycomb in a slightly comical manner.
The epigraph’s thematic cleverness lies in how it imparts multiple complex themes that are explored in the book in just a single line. Firstly, one main theme of the novel is the innate kindness that we all have. Atticus Finch, the narrator’s father and the hero of the story, acts as a person that we should aspire to be, with other characters like Boo Radley showing the hidden goodness we have that lies beneath what society has ascribed to us. The epigraph conveys these themes by showing that even those we commonly prescribe negative traits, lawyers in this instance, were once children and had innocence or goodness. On the flipside, the epigraph also imparts another major theme of the novel, corruption and loss of innocence. The child characters in the novel go through an arc in which they begin to see the harshness of the world. The epigraph similarly shows how a child, the epitome of innocence, can lose that innocence and become corrupted, a change comically represented within the quote by being a lawyer.