From To Kill a Mockingbird to Go Set a Watchman: Harper Lee and Triumph of Pragmatism | ||||
| CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education | ||||
| Article 15, Volume 64, Issue 1, June 2018, Page 409-425 PDF (322.55 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/opde.2018.95983 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
| Sayed Mohammed Youssef, Youssef | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| For any polished reader of Harper Lee, the release of her latest novel Go Set a Watchman in July 2015 has thoroughly been a shock to both readership and critics as well, especially when it comes to the virtues of equality, love and racial justice maintained in Lee’s first and still most cherished classic novel ever, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), which are epitomised more particularly through attorney Atticus Finch. The article right here tries to show that though Watchman has often been represented in the media as a sequel to Mockingbird, the characters and incidents are entirely different, especially when it comes to the portrayal of Atticus. The objective of the present article is to strike a comparison between the character(s) of Atticus in both Mockingbird and Watchman. A thorough, critical reading of the texts shows a considerable difference between the two ‘Atticuses’. In Mockingbird, he is simply portrayed as a moral exemplar for many— simply, an idealist. No wonder, he accepts to defend a black labourer falsely convicted of raping a white woman in Jem Crow-era Alabama. Though he is sure that such an action may turn his life upside down, he pays next to no attention to all that and defends the innocent black man, thereby jeopardising his own life, reputation and family members. The Atticus of Watchman is no longer the liberal-minded man wholeheartedly fighting for racial justice in his segregated society; rather, he is a rabid racist and a white supremacist who takes the innate superiority of the white race over the black race for granted—something that makes the reviews given so far about the novel, unlike its predecessor, so negative. Nevertheless, whatever the opinions of Lee’s readership and critics who still identify her as the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Mockingbird, the ideals of her first novel have notably eclipsed, not perceived as admirable, and, furthermore, given way to the politics of pragmatism or matter-of-factness in her second and last novel – Watchman. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Atticus Finch; the Deep South; equality; racial justice; segregation | ||||
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