I taught To Kill a Mockingbird many times, and every time I reread it, I choked up. It’s a wonderful, evocative piece of literature. As for the movie, forget about it. I lost it over and over as I watched; it’s almost unbearably poignant during the last half hour. I would probably have a similar emotional meltdown with the book or the movie today, but that good, warm, self-satisfied feeling I used to experience at the end would be gone. Looking at Mockingbird from the perspective I have today, especially after reading Harper’s first novel, Go Set a Watchman, which was just published recently, I find the book to be both paternalistic and misleading. If I were still teaching, more than likely, Mockingbird would not be part of my curriculum.
What a wonderful guy Atticus Finch is in Mockingbird! He’s a lawyer who takes the case of a poor black man and defends him against a false rape charge. The loss in court makes his struggle to right the wrongs of society all the more noble. He’s hated by the town’s white racists and beloved by the black community, and by Scout, his very young daughter who idolizes her father and narrates the book through a child’s innocent eyes. To me, the book always read like a parable for our time, about how good white people should act and how, in spite of all the losses, we must continue to fight until racism is no longer the written and unwritten law of the land.
But the book is not a parable of our time. It’s a tale out of the 1930s. At the time, Atticus could defend the black community of Maycomb County and not worry that they might attend Scout and Jem’s school or move in next door. His nobility was built on the well established arm’s distance between Maycomb’s black and white communities. I wouldn’t have been able to say that for certain a few years ago, but Harper Lee told us it’s true in the novel she wrote before she began Mockingbird.
Go Set a Watchman took place in the 1950s when it was written, during the beginnings of the modern civil rights struggles. In that book a grown up Scout, who, like Harper Lee herself, had moved to New York and returned to her home town for a visit, is horrified to find that her beloved father has joined with the KKK, and he was one of many among the town’s civic leaders. Atticus despises the NAACP and its lawyers for coming into southern communities and stirring up trouble. He doesn’t want black children going to white children’s schools. He wants things to stay as they were back in the 1930s when he could defend members of the black community and rest assured they would still “know their place.” His depression-era style of tolerance and acceptance had little to do with the genuine social change which was being demanded by civil rights leaders in the 1950s.
Watchman is a book about a grown woman who, like Lee, embraces the civil rights movement and experiences a painful culture shock when she returns home and realizes the white people she admired as a child for their love and tolerance had reverted to a more racist stance when their established order was threatened. Lee was told that the novel Watchman wouldn’t go anywhere in its current form and she should try again, that she should write her new book around some of the childhood reminiscences in the novel. The resulting book, Mockingbird, is a retreat to Lee’s rose-colored youth, painting a child’s view of that beautiful world Lee grew up in—the same world her grownup protagonist of Watchman realizes was a sham.
From a literary standpoint, Mockingbird is a far better novel than Watchman, but it’s not because of its literary merit alone that the book became an overnight sensation and has continued to sell more than 50 years later. It’s because the book is an inspirational affirmation of the way many of us want to see ourselves. We would rather not admit that in many ways, we are far too much like the Atticus of the ’50s who runs from his anti-racist ideals when he’s confronted with the reality of a world where some of his power and privilege have to be relinquished to allow others to have the rights of equal citizenship without Jim Crow laws and the burden of being treated as inferiors. It’s an uncomfortable truth that many of us would rather not face. But if we’re paying attention to what’s going on around us today, we should be shocked into realizing that institutional and personal racism have clung to their power tenaciously since civil rights legislation passed in the ’60s, and we need to understand how much liberal whites have benefitted from looking the other way while we pride ourselves on our post-racial ideals and see ourselves reflected in the noble portrayal of Atticus in Mockingbird.
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.
It’s hard to believe the author has recently read “Mockingbird” or knows much about the background publication history of either book, besides the bullet points. “Mockingbird” is hardly a rose-colored view of youth, and Lee worked closely with an editor for many years to shape that novel. The stark difference between “Mockingbird” and “Watchman” is due to Lee carefully crafting “Mockingbird” as a fiction novel, whereas “Watchman” is very nearly memoir. The Atticus Finch in “Mockingbird” is a different entity altogether from Lee’s dad, but the Atticus Finch in “Watchman” is not. So the lessons of “Watchmen” do not negate those of “Mockingbird” any more than “Batman Returns” negates the original “Superman” movie. Furthermore, there is a great deal of controversy, well-deserved, over the circumstances of “Watchman” ever being published. Lee had struggled all her life with writing a sophomore novel after “Mockingbird,” and struggled with alcoholism, nasty rumors about Truman Capote ghost-writing her book, and so on. She could have released “Watchman” at any time over the past 50 years, but did not because its Finch character no longer made sense and was inconsistent in light of the Finch conceived for “Mockingbird.” Only when Lee was already considered to be in early stages of dementia did an editor take advantage of her vulnerability and play off of her life-long desire to release a 2nd book. It’s safe to say the “Watchman” released to the public was a money-grab by a publishing house, and Lee herself was in no position mentally to craft it into a reasonable follow-up piece of literature, nor did she seem to understand the ramifications for releasing the book in terms of its contradictory effect on the legacy of “Mockingbird.” Like I said, the problem is not that the Finch in the 2nd book is less sympathetic or more realistic; the problem is that he’s not even the same person. Had Lee not been crafting an idealized character but attempting to describe her father, she would not have written the Finch in “Mockingbird” the same way. Comparing fiction to non-fiction and then attempting to tell us that the non-fiction disproves the ideals and meanings and messages of the fiction is not good literary analysis. “Mockingbird” stands as a great piece of literature and its greatness is untarnished by “Watchmen.” it’s sad that the author of this piece has declared that he would never teach “Mockingbird” to classes again — that is his own shame. But then again, by his own admission, he has not read “Mockingbird” in a long time, and he seems to have clearer recollections of the inferior filmed version than of the novel, which goes far deeper into the characters and situations and hardly can be accused of having a rose-colored view at all.
What can we conclude from studying how our views about integration have changed, through the years, in Tucson? Have some of us, like the Atticus of Watchman rather than the Atticus of Mockingbird, lost whatever will we may have had to roll up our sleeves and get the integration job done, settling for anti-integrationist cop-outs like “Brown children don’t need to sit next to white children in order to learn” and “Let’s build a Fruchthendler-Sabino pipeline so east-siders won’t have to enroll their children in a middle school that doesn’t match their demographic comfort zone”?
What do you think, David?
I’m pretty much in line with you David, but these first two comments (above) are both insightful and thought provoking. You don’t see that much in the comments section. Anywhere.
“He’s hated by the town’s white racists”
” the book always read like a parable for our time, about how good white people should act and how, in spite of all the losses, we must continue to fight until racism is no longer the written and unwritten law of the land”
And yet those two comments are racists themselves. Todays race issues do not stem from “white racists” (even those you see on the uber liberal media are less than 1% of the population), but yet from racist “people of color” who never experiences any harsh form or racism first hand, and no what the “Reverend’s” Jack$on and $harpton call racism is anything but. As a Native American and retired Army vet, I have born the brunt of more racism than today’s “people of color”. People need to stop seeing racism where none exists.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” is a childhood memory of a loved parent, but it is only half of the true picture, which we get in “Watchman.” I see no contradiction between the two works.
The readers’ love for Atticus or their view of themselves is a separate issue and does NOT take away from the meaning or relationship between the two works.
It is tempting to refer to Harper Lee as a One Hit Wonder. But that one iconic novel affected generations of readers far too greatly to dismiss her, or To Kill a Mockingbird, so casually. The story is about far more than Atticus Finch, as admirable a protagonist as he is. Go Set a Watchman is a dud, notable only in its peculiar reversal of Finch’s sense of morality and its plodding exposition. Lee’s editors were right and guided her to creating a masterful novel. The original draft, Go Set a Watchman, should have remained buried.
But to consider not teaching To Kill a Mockingbird because in retrospect (after reading Go Set a Watchman) it might be viewed as “paternalistic or misleading” (not sure about either) – would be to deny new generations of readers a great emotional and thought provoking experience. And that would be a shame.
God forbid a book be “paternalistic”.
Do you even believe the words that you write, or is there some company handbook you all copy from?
Let me guess, along with being a white guilt white privilege trooper, are you are also a feminist?
Interesting discussion. Let me chime in starting from a different point of view than my post.
From the standpoint of literary criticism, Mockingbird is an excellent novel. It does a wonderful job of creating a sense of the town in the 30s, the characters are varied and well drawn, and the plot is well structured. Add to that the fact that high school students tend to enjoy it, and it makes for a good novel to assign.
But from a literary historical standpoint, it’s part of a literary tradition where noble, educated white men and women lend a hand to a minority community that would be helpless without them. Atticus is as near perfect in morals and temperament as a man can be — flawless and noble — and he’s the only thing that stands between Tom, accused of rape, and a speedy guilty verdict. There’s nothing wrong with books or movies like that per se, except that they dominate our storytelling. In far too many well meaning stories about racial inequality, whites are seen riding to the rescue on their white chargers to save the poor black community. When that is how the story is told, over and over, it furthers the sense that minorities are helpless and inferior, unable to take care of themselves.
Now, thankfully, we have more books and films that tell the story from the standpoint of blacks, or Native Americans or other minority groups — from the inside, not from the outside. Even historians are beginning to discuss slavery from the standpoint of the slaves themselves, their individual histories, narratives of slave rebellions which hadn’t been talked about much before. This is a very positive development. Lately I hear black artists, scholars and activists saying to white people about black works of literature, film or music, “It’s not always about you.” Recently, I’ve heard that phrase used in relation to Beyonce’s latest album. What I hear is people saying is that they have their own story to tell, and if whites are part of the story, they don’t need to be right in the center of it.
And that’s why I would no longer teach Mockingbird. I’d try to find a piece of literature about racial relations in the U.S. which wasn’t so centered on white characters. I think teaching Mockingbird to kids continues the belief that the only way to see black culture and black history is through white eyes, and I think that’s socially harmful.
If I were to design a version of Mockingbird I would enjoy teaching, it would present Maycomb County of both the 30s and the 50s, maybe moving back and forth between the two eras chapter by chapter, combining a picture of Atticus in the 30s who is noble compared to most of his fellow white citizens with a picture of him when he fears that NAACP-style civil rights will mean he has to relinquish aspects of his white power and privilege which he holds dear. I doubt such a novel is possible, and if it were, it would never have been as popular as Mockingbird, but it would present a far more honest, nuanced portrayal of racial relations in the south and, by extension, across the country.
…and then juxtapose it to the OJ trial where you had a black majority jury, and after acquitting him they rioted in the streets.
Oh I’m sorry,…let’s skip that part. Even NPR suggested that he was acquitted because of the Rodney King trial the year before. And all of the LAPD errors.
Was justice served? Would Atticus have been proud?
Life imitating art?
A few comments on David Safier’s post above:
— David writes that To Kill a Mockingbird “furthers the sense that minorities are helpless and inferior, unable to take care of themselves.” The story is about a white Southern lawyer defending a black man against a false accusation. Does David believe there were a lot of black defense laywers in rural parts of Southern states in the mid 1930s? How does the existence of a white lawyer further the sense that minorities are “helpless”? How does the existence of a white lawyer in any way suggest that blacks are “inferior”? David really has not thought this through.
— Then David writes, “And that’s why I would no longer teach Mockingbird. I’d try to find a piece of literature about racial relations in the U.S. which wasn’t so centered on white characters.” But isn’t it telling that David does not provide a single example of such a piece of literature? Why not? David does not acknowledge the other merits of “To Kill a Mockingbird” besides the racial-justice element of its story. “Mockingbird” also is in large part about Southern people and social stratification, as well as their varying levels of alienation, corruption, groupthink and eccentricity. One big plot thread involves Boo Radley. Another involves an old heroin addict who lives up the street. Harper Lee paints a picture of a whole society, and then shows the society’s paradoxes and hypocrisies intertwining around the event of a trial and its aftermath — all delicately described by a vulnerable and keen-eyed tomboy. That is to say “Mockinbird” isn’t just about “racial relations,” it’s about putting yourself in another person’s shoes, and it demonstrates how many types of shoes/people there are even within a few blocks of a small town. It’s inspiring literature, not a treatise on race. If you can find another book half as good, by all means recommend it and even teach it.
But what’s with the zero-sum game? Can’t people read “Mockingbird” AND read the other type of book(s) you describe? You present it as an either/or, and your case hinges on the release of another book that only demonstrates that Harper Lee’s real-life source material was eventually not as unsullied as her end-result fictional character would lead one to hope.
— Finally, David doubles down on his original position by writing, “I think teaching Mockingbird to kids continues the belief that the only way to see black culture and black history is through white eyes, and I think that’s socially harmful.” Again, what’s with the “only way” stuff, David? The “only way” that teaching Mockingbird to kids would “continue the belief” is if the teacher handed out copies of “Mockingbird” to his pupils and then said, “Now class, this here book represents the sum total of all that you’ll ever need to know about race relations in America, and under no circumstances are you to read any other books that address the subject.”
David’s point is taken, that white people do tend to have an easier time approaching racial subjects in fiction if the works are built around a white protagonist, which provides an entry point for easier relatability and identification. Readers of all groups should expand the kinds of fiction and subject matter and perspectives they’re willing to invest themselves in, yes. But David’s answer, which is to throw out existing works because they’re presented from white perspectives, commits the same error it aims to rectify.
Lionel, I taught high school English over a thirty year period. I know that in a school year, there are only a limited number of long works like novels you can teach. You have to allow adequate time for students to read a book, which means you have to choose your texts carefully. There isn’t enough time to teach Mockingbird as well as a novel of similar length that deals with race relations from a more African American-centered perspective unless you’re going to devote a large portion of the school year to literature on that topic.
For me, if I had a slot in my curriculum currently filled by Mockingbird, I would choose to replace it with another novel that doesn’t emphasize a white hero who comes in to solve a black community’s problems. If there were world enough and time, I think it would be wonderful to teach Mockingbird along with a companion novel with a more African American-centered perspective, but in the real world of education, that’s tough to do without pushing other worthy novels and topics out of the curriculum.
So, does the prodigal black-perspective novel have a title(s)? Some of the banned MAS rags qualify? Y’all are talking about it like nothing of the type actually exists. If you’re/were educators, take a few minutes and drop some names for the trolls to gnash at. My bookshelf needs a refresh…