Only occasionally can great works of American literature withstand the test of time. Critical claims aside, these stories can even more rarely translate into contemporary times, corresponding with today’s ongoing issues. Hemingway’s protagonists live monotonous lifestyles as the story is told vicariously through supporting casts, but the tales catered neatly to the “Lost Generation” that survived World War I; Steinbeck can still resonate through the hearts of men and the bonds that hold them together in friendships and brotherhood; J.D. Salinger’s "The Catcher in the Rye" may represent a type of pent-up frustration and alienation found in youth, but in terms of censorship, it is far from what holds to be provocative today.
If there was ever an account of character to have touched the souls of American readers, particularly high school students, and concrete itself within the confines of our culture, "To Kill a Mockingbird" would be that novel.
"Go Set a Watchman" filled bookshelves July 14, 2015 — 55 years and three days after "To Kill a Mockingbird’s" release. The only two books Harper Lee ever wrote and published. In fact, this is the most noise the media has heard from author Harper Lee since she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for Mockingbird.
The new novel has stirred a controversy within the crowd of people who adore the original novel. The “sequel” sheds a misinterpreted light onto Atticus Finch as to how he was initially written as or was progressively going to organize into. The idol of absolute, unbiased justice encrypted in one of the Great American Novels, Atticus Finch, has succumbed to an affliction of racism, not uncommon in his Southern peers of Alabama.
He is an undeniable, hypocritical racist, that is, if you do not afford "Go Set a Watchman" the patience you gave "To Kill a Mockingbird" and see it through the entirety of the climatic sequence. The story begins with a 26-year-old Jean Louise “Scout” Finch venturing back to her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama, for her annual two-week vacation. Scout lives in New York, enabling her to live a free-willed and independent lifestyle impossible in her hometown. Her visits back to the Deep South have lessened since her brother Jem quite literally dropped dead just two years prior, a condition of weak heart inherited from his mother who died of the same ailment. Atticus still practices law in Maycomb and serves on the Alabama state Senate, mentoring Scout’s infrequent beau Henry “Hank” Clinton.
Scout’s question of Atticus’ character develops when she finds him to be connected to a local chapter of the (White) Citizen’s Council, not only a segregationist group, but a white supremacist organization. The successor (white supremacist) organization to the original Citizen’s Council is the Council of Conservative Citizens, the group South Carolina shooter Dylann Roof researched and developed his radically militant ideas from. Scout then spends the majority of the novel clashing with who she thought her father was and the person she thinks she is from being raised by him. There is no actual confrontation between Atticus and his daughter over these revelations until the last few drawn out scenes.
To cut to what is dreadfully hiding behind the innards of the pages, Atticus reveals to Scout that, yes, he supports a form of segregation but is not a racist. Watchman was the concept of Mockingbird written in 1957. At the time of its submission, Lee's publisher wanted to hear more about Scout’s childhood and what brought her up to idolize Atticus. With 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education hearing and the Civil Rights Movement in mind, Lee wanted a more immediate context than a story set in 1930. Atticus Finch was to have survived the Great Depression, viewed another World War and witness further atrocities done to negate effects of racial equality. He was not going to be the exact same figure we once looked up to from Mockingbird.
Atticus balances what he knows to be morally right with doing the right thing. He believes in “equal rights for all, special privileges for none,” staying true to his testament of being a Jeffersonian Democrat. He details a social structure if African-Americans were to be given all the rights and privileges that were automatic to whites at the time all at once. Maycomb’s African-American population, including the Finch’s former housekeeper and maternal figure Calpurnia, broke all friendly ties with Atticus after hearing of his political affiliations, while politely allowing him to still represent them if necessary in court.
An Alabamian herself, Lee attests to Southern culture of a majority of blacks at the time to be uneducated, or disadvantaged educationally, and obviously not having equal opportunities in politics or professional careers. Staying close to the family settlement in Alabama, Atticus has not been exposed to too many African-American figures with a formal education or place of power his profession may provide to him. From an entirely different perspective, Scout, living in the North in New York, has seen a variety of characters, careers of low to high importance, black or white.
Atticus calculates that the majority of the county is black and, to be properly represented in political positions, would vote themselves into office, without any knowledge on how the systems of checks and balances should be operated. The very same system of power was helmed by possibilities of greed and corruption, mainly piloted off white men of influence seeking profit, and systematically degrading standards of living for African-American communities. Atticus never sees any African-Americans as inferior beings, something like people he found in the Citizen’s Council to preach, but he is forced to acknowledge the tragic reality of their position in a white-dominated society.
Readers were taken aback by the huge change of morals by their beloved Atticus. The excuse for the delayed installment seems to be that Watchman was a “rejected” or “failed” story. Rumored to be unearthed from a safety deposit box somewhere, Lee signed off on the forgotten novel’s publication. The hardest thing avid fans of Mockingbird are having trouble coming to grips with is that their hero Atticus is now entirely flawed. The foundation of the unbending will of great American fiction is cracked; even now, Atticus is unjustly compared with other proven farce moral compasses. While in reality, there is no absolute justice. Atticus’ flaws actually make him more human. As captivating as Mockingbird was, there was always a droning, two-dimensional tone to Atticus’ portrayal — his manner of speech, his interactions with his children and the strict practice of his own principles.
Atticus Finch can still be a (fictional) Civil Rights hero. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed off on the Civil Rights Act, was hailed a hero, but still bore a hidden bigotry within his own heart. But with Atticus there is no malice. He does not hide behind any cloak or flag. The South has always been its own country separate from the rest of America, and he is just trying to preserve its social order the best he can. Whether one sees eye to eye on this new portrayal of the once quintessential, yet politically incorrect, human being does not truly matter. The theme Watchman ultimately addresses is the ideology of hero worship. Atticus was a hero to readers, and to his own fictional children. As we grow and develop into our own personalities separate from our parents, we must learn to “kill our heroes”, destroying our past idolizations that chain us to a certain image we want to see them in. These contradictions can end up destroying us and prevent us from actually growing into who we ourselves want to be.
