In the Economic Times, dt. 13 July 2015 page 15
Amid Shock, Readers Also Find Reality in Bigoted Atticus Finch
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Alexandra Alter
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Harper Lee's Go Set a
Watchman Gives Crusading lawyer of To Kill a Mockingbird a Dark Side
With all the debate brewing
over the origins of Harper Lee's novel Go Set a Watchman, the biggest
bombshell turned out to be an explosive character revelation that no one
saw coming.
Atticus Finch, the crusading lawyer of To Kill a
Mockingbird, whose principled fight against racism and inequality
inspired generations of readers, is depicted in Watchman as an aging
racist who once attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting, holds negative views
about African-Americans and denounces desegregation efforts.
“Do
you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and
theatres? Do you want them in our world?“ Atticus asks his grown
daughter, Jean Louise, in Watchman. The stunning revelation will
probably alter readers' view of Lee's cherished first novel and could
reshape her legacy , which until now has hinged entirely on the
outsize success of her 1960 novel Mockingbird, a beloved book that has
sold more than 40 million copies globally and occupies a unique place in
our literary culture.
It is also certain to spur debate about
the character of Atticus, and his moral integrity in Mockingbird -a
staple of high school curriculums around the country -that made him a
cultural icon whose influence transcended literature, inspiring
generations of lawyers, teachers and social workers.
“Whether
you've read the novel or seen the film, there's this image you have of
Atticus as a hero, and this brings him down a peg,“ said Adam Bergstein,
a teacher in New York who teaches Mockingbird to 10th graders.“How do
you take this guy who everybody looked up to for the last 50-plus years,
and now he's a more flawed individual?“ The new version of Atticus, 72,
suffering from arthritis and stubbornly resistant to social change,
stands in sharp contrast to the gentle scholar in Mockingbird, who tells
Scout (Jean Louise), when explaining why he has gone out on a limb to
defend a black man, that “I do my best to love everybody“
In Watchman, which comes out on Tuesday , Atticus chides Scout for her idealistic views about racial equality:
“The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.“
The revelation comes at a moment when issues of racism, inequality and
the persecution of minorities in the United States are again at the
forefront of the news. Last week, the South Carolina Legislature voted
to remove the Confederate battle flag from its State House grounds,
after days of emotional debate. Protests have erupted around the country
after police shootings of unarmed black men.
Watchman, which was
completed in 1957, is landing in the middle of the debate, like a
literary artifact out of a time capsule from a period when the country
was divided over many of the same issues. “We could turn this into a
plus in our national conversation about racism and the Confederate
flag.It turns out that Atticus is no saint, as none of us are, but a man
with prejudices,“ said Charles J Shields, author of Mockingbird: A
Portrait of Harper Lee. Some writers and literary critics see added
value in a more complex, and flawed, version of Atticus. If Mockingbird
sugarcoats racial divisions by depicting a white man as the model for
justice in an unjust world, then Watchman may be like bitter medicine
that more accurately reflects the times.
“If Atticus Finch is not
quite the plaster saint that he is in To Kill a Mockingbird, there
could be something rich and fascinating about that,“ said Thomas Mallon,
a novelist and critic, who had read only the published excerpt from
Watchman. “The moral certainties in To Kill a Mockingbird are apparent
from the first page, and in that sense, I don't think it's a great nov
el that deals with the tormenting questions of race in America, but
maybe this new one is, if it's more nuanced.“
It is unclear why
Lee set aside Watchman -a blunt and unsparing ook at a young woman's
disillusionment at the racism that permeates her hometown and her family
-to write Mockingbird, a more palatable com ng-of-age tale. Narrated by
a charming and observant child, Mockingbird features characters that
fall neatly into camps of heroes and villains; Gregory Peck's portrayal
of Atticus in the 1962 ilm is an enduring symbol of a righteous lawyer
and model parent.
Lee wrote the nov el in the mid-1950s, when, like Jean Louise,
she was liv ing in New York and occasionally travelling home to
Alabama to visit her aging father, the lawyer AC Lee, who
is commonly cited as the model for Atticus in letters she
wrote at
Mockingbird. In letters she wrote at the time to a friend in New York,
she describes feeling unmoored by his physical decline and impending
death.
She also recounts feeling like an outsider in her hometown
because of her stance on civil rights: “I don't trust myself to keep my
mouth shut if I feel moved to express myself, thereon it will get out
all over Monroeville that I am a member of the NAACP , which, God
forbid. They already suspect this to be a fact anyway .“
While AC
Lee was moderate by the standards of the times, he supported
states' rights and held segregationist views, according to Shields.
Later, after the publication of Mockingbird in 1960, his views softened,
and he started campaigning for redistricting in the county to protect
disenfranchised black voters, Shields said.
As the first reviews
of the novel were published on Friday , some Mockingbird fans were
so disheartened by the revelation that they said they were reluctant to
read the new book. On Twitter, Jamie Harding, who lives in Alabama,
likened learning out about Atticus' dark side to “finding out Santa
Claus beats his reindeer.“ Lee's publisher, HarperCollins, said there
was never a discussion of toning down Atticus' racist remarks to
preserve his moral image. “Harper Lee wanted to have the novel published
exactly as it was written, without editorial intervention,“ Jonathan
Burnham, the publisher of the HarperCollins imprint Harper, wrote in an
email message.“By confronting these challenging and complex issues at
the height of the civil rights movement, the young Harper Lee
demonstrated an honesty and bravery that makes this work both a powerful
document of its time and a compelling piece of literature.“
Karla FC Holloway , a professor of English and law at Duke
University , said the new version of Atticus may lead people to
reread Mockingbird more closely . “It will force an interesting
conversation about -if this is really Atticus -what have our own desires
done to the character, and what is the literary truth?“ Holloway
said.“This is who we want to be as a country , but this is not who
Atticus was.“
Kansas City Library, USA