Mockingbird Part I: Deconstructing that American Icon -- Atticus Finch

Every year, millions of high school students read Harper Lee's beloved 1960 classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.   After 55 years, royalties still amount to $2.3 million a year.  Oprah Winfrey has called it "our national novel." A 1962 film starring Gregory Peck immortalized his portrayal of small town Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch as the idealized hero who stood up to white supremacists to defend an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman.

For 55 years, To Kill a Mockingbird has stood as Lee's only published novel.   She had been widely quoted through the years as saying that she did not intend to publish anything else.  Now 89, deaf and almost blind, she resides in an assisted living facility.   Her privacy is protected by loyal friends and by her attorney Tonja Carter, who took over management of her affairs after Lee's older sister Alice died a few years ago.

So it came as a surprise last year, when Ms. Carter announced that she had found a long-lost novel by Lee -- in fact an early version of what became Mockingbird, although its action takes place 20 years later.   It was "found" by Ms. Carter in a safe deposit box, attached to the manuscript for To Kill a Mockingbord, although her story about exactly when and who else knew about it has varied with different tellings.

It was even more of a surprise when Ms. Carter announced that Harper Lee had agreed to the publication of what amounts to a "sequel" that was actually written first.   She quoted Lee as having said, when asked about whether she wanted it published:  "Hell yes.   Why would I write a book and not want it published?" 

It was reported that the newly found novel was actually submitted to a publisher as Harper Lee's first novel in 1957.  But the editor advised that she rewrite it to change it from the perspective of Atticus's 28 year old daughter looking back on her childhood, to the 8 year old daughter relating her childhood experiences as they happened.   The result was what we have known and loved for 55 years as To Kill a Mockingbird.

This has of course raised many questions:   (1) Why now, after refusing to publish for 55 years?   (2) What are the circumstances of its suddenly being "found" now?   (3)  Is Harper Lee of sound enough mind to have made a reasoned decision, or is she being taken advantage of?  (4)  Did she ever conceive of the two novels co-existing, or is this merely a first draft that was transformed and of interest only to scholars of writing/rewriting?  (5) What are we to make of the radical change in the character of Atticus Finch as portrayed in the two books -- from idealized good man to bigoted racist? 

New York Times book critic, Michiko Kaketani, wrote about the changed image of Atticus Finch in her review of the newly published novel, Go Set a Watchman.  Of the Atticus depicted in Mockingbird, Kaketani wrote:

". . .  [H]e was the perfect man — the ideal father and a principled idealist, an enlightened, almost saintly believer in justice and fairness.   In real life, people named their children after Atticus.   People went to law school and became lawyers because of Atticus.

"Shockingly, in Ms. Lee’s long-awaited novel, Go Set a Watchman, . . .  Atticus is a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like “The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.” Or asks his daughter: “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?”

In the coming days, I will take up these questions and -- now having read Go Set a Watchman myself -- I'll give my point of view on these controversies.

Ralph