It is most interesting to me that you and others see Atticus's racial superiority in To Kill a Mockingbird where I didn't see it until Go Set a Watchman...
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It also explains to me why I found Atticus to be a flat, and unbelievable character on reading To Kill a Mockingbird a second time, some five years before reading Go Set a Watchman. I was missing all the hints you were getting, the part of the iceberg Lee elided from To Kill a Mockingbird, to dignify my perception of the story of Atticus as the white hero I was looking for.............
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It also explains to me why I found Atticus a much greater hero after reading Go Set a Watchman. It gave me hope and a model for being a father and grandfather that would recognize and overcome the moral corruption pressed on me the by the history I endured and by my preconceptions to hide my moral corruption under the sort of good counsel Atticus dispensed to Scout.
I have completed my 2nd read and have considered deeply my personal feelings upon the Atticus character and the reasons I feel the character is not worthy of the hero status and sentimentality that has been lavished upon him over the decades.
My disappointment in Atticus and the book itself remain and are heightened on the second read. I’ll explain those feelings as objectively as I can.
Atticus lives in a time and place where racism is so deeply established that is has become an accepted way of life. As a white man Atticus ‘naturally’ considers his race to be superior to the colored men, but he is seen as ‘outstanding’ because he makes a conscious effort to treat black men fairly and with politeness. (This is where the condescension feelings creep in for many people). It is like the one rider, who with compassion for his horse, doesn’t whip or spur his mount like the others do theirs.
This is the way the Atticus character is painted by the author, and that is all well and good. I think what annoys me is the mass misconception that Atticus is such a hero for being anti-racist.
He is not anti-racist, he merely makes a point of being kind and polite to black people, which is not the same thing. He never rages against the racism that his society is built upon and he certainly doesn’t believe in equality. Can you imagine Atticus being completely non-fussed by say, the concept of his daughter having a black boyfriend, or marrying a black man?
Atticus also believes (and states) the women are inferior to men. Again, he is kind and polite to women, he encourages his daughter; but his natural position is that women are the lesser sex and even instructs his daughter upon this ‘fact’ when she questions the inequality in the jury system (that Women are deemed to be incapable of understanding and rationalising with the kind of intellect that a man can). It is like he is telling his daughter that she can be anything, and all she can be…. but only within the intellectual and capability boundaries of a female. He informs her that she must realise that she can never be equal the superior sex, the male.
These points I raised previously and my feelings upon the above are strengthened by the re-read.
However, the main thing that irks me about Atticus is not what he says and does, but what he doesn’t say or do.
The racism and sexism aside, I don’t think that Atticus ever gets to the crux of the matter (neither do I think that the book gets to it).
Incest.
Incest is the dark unmentionable undercurrent of the book. It occurs within that society, within that time and place. It is the shadowy secret that some families endure and a truth that all avoid.
Tom is so clearly not a rapist and yet Bob Ewell is publicly identified as sexually and physically abusive man. Mayella Ewell is a surrogate wife for her father and a surrogate mother to her younger siblings.
The whole trial is a sham. Mayella Ewell grasping for some power, a cry for help regarding the abuse she is subject to, a mask for the feelings that she, a white girl might have feelings for Tom, a black man.
Attius bloody well knows this. At the very least he strongly suspects it (we all do, it is alluded to throughout the book). And yet he never goes after Bob in court. We feel that Mayella is only one or two forceful questions from blurting the truth, indeed, we feel that Atticus is softening her up for the killer question;
“Isn’t it true Mayella, that it is your father who rapes you, and not Tom who raped you?”
But that question, the truth, it never comes. The incest is accepted and ignored. A massive elephant with a monkey on his back weeping at the rear of the courtroom and it is skirted around because it is too deep a subject, to vast a ‘can o worms.’
What kind of man is Atticus then? Prepared to conduct a sham trial but not to confront the truth?
He is a part of that same vile establishment that protects paedophile priests; the people in power who don’t necessarily condone the act of Priests raping children, but who do nothing about it all the same. They accept it; turn a blind eye and cover up for the perpetrators. If a paedophile priest is exposed, the first defence they drum up is that the children deserved it, the children seduced the priest.
Ask people (readers) what the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is about and they’ll all chant the mantra ‘racism.’
Ask if Atticus is a good man and they’ll cheer with a resounding unequivocal 'yes.'
As I read I’m bursting with excitement and anticipation to get to the bit where under pressure or manipulation from Atticus, Mayella Ewell confesses that her father is the actual rapist. It never comes. For me it is biggest disappointment within all of the literature I’ve ever read. From the courtroom scene on, I’m numb from the disappointment, and that is the ‘flinging the book into the hedge’ moment for me.
Harper Lee tells us; "The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think."
As Vern states in reply, actually, he prefers not to think, just enjoy.
I think that is the same apathetic state of mind that applies for most readers of this book. The charm of the precocious little girl narrator, all curly top and fight in her cute little man overalls; the upstanding white man in his respectable suit who has the courage to speak politely to a Negro fella. The good natured, wrongly accused black man who gets martyred. The vile white trash villain who get what’s a comin’.
Nobody thinks about the abuse and incest that is the very core of the story, the very core of the book. Racism is just the sideshow, the cop out, the misdirection.
I don’t know what is intentional by the author and what is not. It is either a brilliant novel or just pap, I honestly don’t know and simply can’t tell.
You see what thinking about a book does for you! Turmoil, emotional unrest and weighty theories. My advice is to follow Vern’s advice; just skim along on the surface and enjoy it like it were a cherry pie. Never, ever think about the book and above all, never, ever mention the incest.
