American
novelist Harper Lee, famous for her masterpiece “To Kill a Mockingbird” and for
shunning the fame it brought her, has died aged 89, officials in her hometown
said Friday (Feb.19). A spokeswoman for Monroeville, Ala., where Lee was born
and spent her final years living in seclusion, confirmed local media reports of
her death, saying: “She did pass away.” Lee’s 1960 novel, which earned her a
Pulitzer Prize, came to define racial injustice in the Depression-era South and
became standard reading in classrooms across the world.
As a
Southern Gothic novel and a Bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a
Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars
have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and
gender roles in the American Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools
in the United States with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice.
Harper Lee’s
chart is available from Astro-Databank [1] and is reproduced here. The table below gives the solar progressions
for the period around 1960 when the book
was published and received the Pulitzer prize.
Dynamic Chart:
Harper Lee - Natal Chart
28 Apr 1926, 5:25 pm, CST +6:00
Monroeville Alabama, 31°N31'40'', 087°W19'29''
Geocentric Tropical Zodiac
Placidus Houses, True Node
Selection: Solar Arc Dirns
planets
Asc (2) Sqq Plu
(9) (X) Sa-Na 7 Jul 1959 27°Sc47' D 12°Cn47' D
Vus (9) Cnj Plu
(9) (X) Sa-Na 12 Jul
1960 12°Cn47' D 12°Cn47' D
*** END REPORT ***
Notice that natal
Pluto in the 9th (in Cancer) is the focus of the progressions. The
following edited extract from Steven
Forrest [2]explains the meaning of this position.
The ninth house is often referred to
the as the “House of Long Journeys”. Nothing will so challenge our beliefs as an
encounter with their alternatives. Generally throughout history such encounters
have been hard to come by. Multiculturalism has been a rare phenomenon:
cultures have tended to be monolithic
with a particular set of commonly held values binding them into unity.
To experience the reality of alternative perspectives travelling and living
among foreigners provided an “ education” that was unavailable elsewhere….at least
until “education” became widely available and that is another meaning of the
traditional ninth house: universities, learning, scholarship. Closely linked to
those notions was the idea of the dissemination of knowledge. Hence, the
association of the ninth house with the publishing industry…and who hasn’t ever been taken on a “Long Journey” by a
book? So what does it mean when Pluto
lies here? The dissemination of knowledge requires spokespeople. Call them
Teachers, Writers, Preachers…whatever. They speak to us about the moral or
metaphysical framework of life. The
best of them recognize the limitations of the wounds tied to the “religion of
their people” or the collective attitude of their ethnic group (Pluto in
Cancer) and commit themselves zealously to the formidable task of stretching the boundaries of consciousness
beyond the narrow framework of their culture.
In addition Pluto is conjunct the asteroid Hopi. Martha
Wescott’s delineations below deepen our understanding of Lee’s radix Pluto and
explain why she wrote To Kill a Mocking
Bird.
HOPI shows up as incidents with minorities (including Afro-Americans) and
reactions to what is perceived as discrimination or prejudice.
HOPI/PLUTO: to see power struggles, fears of
domination or concerns about inhibitions and ruthlessness in dealing with
prejudice and/or minority individuals; to understand the impact of generational
poverty and powerlessness in minority cultures.
Currently her
progressed Sun [4le] opposite the asteroid Orpheus [3aq] has become the reason for her death. The
immediate cause was transit Mars [23sc] conjunct natal Saturn [23sc] (natal
square).
ORPHEUS: sense of
mourning and loss; grief (for what you don't have—what has gone out of your
life-- “might have been” or what was);
contact with death.
[2] The Book
of Pluto; Steven Forrest
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