Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.” (Lee 271-272). Go Set a Watchman is a book by Harper Lee set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama during the civil rights movement in the 1950s. It is the sequel to the book To Kill a Mockingbird, also by Harper Lee. It follows Jean Louise, a young woman who visits her hometown and realizes she and her loved ones don’t have the same beliefs as she thought they did. Specifically, they disagree on civil rights. Jean Louise has arguments with Hank, her boyfriend, and Atticus, her father, over civil rights. Afterward, she tries to run away but is stopped by Dr. Finch, with whom she has a final argument. Dr. Finch is right, people prefer …show more content…
It’s impossible to grow if you never challenge yourself, and it’s impossible to understand something completely if you don’t know both sides. Furthermore, people shouldn’t be put on a pedestal. Jean Louise has Atticus on a pedestal for the majority of her life, and it nearly destroys her to realize that Atticus is just a regular person and doesn’t hold all the same beliefs. Jean Louise has always agreed with Atticus from an early age. She’s always looked up to him, taking his word as law. When they finally disagree on Finch, who later tells her, “...now you, Miss, born with your own conscience, somewhere along the line fastened it like a barnacle onto your father’s. As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God” (Lee 266). Dr. Finch knows that it’s hard on Jean Louise to realize that her father and her don’t see eye to eye on something. However, he also knows that Jean Louise having Atticus on a pedestal isn’t a good thing and that she thought everything she said was fact and I blindly followed her, taking her beliefs as my own. One day when I was older, I overheard her talking about how climate change wasn’t real and I was
Go Set a Watchman, published on July 14, 2015 and To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, both written by Harper Lee feature similar versions of the same characters. To Kill a Mockingbird, the beloved American classic, features a past tense coming-of-age story narrated by the main character Scout in Maycomb County during the 1930’s. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, who functions as the novel’s moral backbone and a model for justice in an unjust world; Scout, aged six, serves as a symbol
published the book but under a new name To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel was about a young girl named Scout, her brother Jem and their friend Dill. They want to investigate a mysterious man who lives down the street named Boo Radley, while at the same time their father is going through a rough racially motivated rape trial. After a year, this coming of age story won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and several other literary awards. To Kill a Mockingbird also was given a 1962 film adaptation that won
Viewed as a progressive hero in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shocked her readers as Atticus Finch grew and changed his indication of African Americans around the time of the Civil Rights movement in America. As evident in Go Set a Watchmen, Atticus is not a racist, but a victim to change. Progressive ideas of the north and the outcome of Brown v the Board of Education in 1954 scare the south as they see the ideas as a means to an end in their status quo of a hierarchal society. While both Jean