1. When I first heard that Harper Lee was releasing “Go Set a Watchman,” I
was expecting a sequel to her seminal novel “To Kill A Mockingbird.” To my
surprise, this book was not the sequel I had longed for, but a completely different
take on Lee’s classic story and her beloved characters. I wanted to give myself a
fair chance to truly enjoy the novel so I carried on with my reading. However, I
could not help but feel that the beloved Atticus Finch had essentially become a
racist. This is the same Atticus Finch that for the past 55 years has been viewed as
a literary hero, a beacon of morality and the embodiment of a good father. And
suddenly, that paragon of good was gone.
The story takes Scout Finch back to her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama,
where she is shocked to discover that her father, Atticus Finch, is now a member
of the Citizens’ Council, which was a white supremacist organization. Scout feels
betrayed by her findings, recalling when her father defended a black man in court
who was accused of rape, despite having only one arm. The man ends up acquitted
on all charges. Now, Atticus argues that it was a mistake for the South to be
integrated and thinks poorly of the NAACP. In Scout’s eyes, he is going back on
everything he taught her growing up and that terrifies her, because he is no longer
the hero she grew up trying to emulate.
Let us flash back a bit to “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In that novel, Atticus
Finch defends a black man named Tom Robinson who is accused of rape. Doesn’t
this sound a bit familiar? Maybe it is because “Go Set a Watchman” is not a sequel
to “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but rather an earlier draft of the bestseller. Up until I
realized this, I was like many other literary fans, heartbroken and confused by this
dramatic change in character. To me, it made absolutely no sense. In “To Kill a
Mockingbird,” there is no indication whatsoever that Atticus Finch is a racist. If
anything, he is colorblind when it comes to race. As I began “Go Set a
Watchman,” I kept thinking that maybe there would be some dramatic reveal at
some point in the story, that maybe some big event triggered this shift in
personality. But there was nothing.
That was when I started my research and realized that this was an early draft
rather than a sequel. Suddenly, everything started to make sense. That was why
Harper Lee did not release the novel so quickly after “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Maybe it was never meant to be published or maybe she just wanted to treat her
fans to more of her excellent writing. Either way, I realized that much of the
controversy surrounding Atticus Finch is founded in the lack of knowledge of the
fact that the newest book is not a true sequel but rather just a sample of more of
Harper Lee’s writing.