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Har!

HAR!

I said the subject was dead to me, but new evidence has come to light that I feel vindicates my feelings upon the book.

I read ‘To kill A Mockingbird’ as a youth and to me it was a confusing mixed-up tale of racial discrimination. Okay, so I was a naïve little brat from the wrong side of the world, but at my multi-racial school all of the kids commonly referred to the novel as ‘To Kill a Blackbird.’

The novel is set in darkest Alabama USA in either in the 1960’s with flash back to the 30’s, or in the 30’s with flash forward to 60’s; anyway the events take place in the 1930’s.

The overt racism, the superior white man and the oppressed black man, I get. What vexed me is that Atticus Finch is a racist but doesn’t even know it. He wants justice for all, but to him men are not just men, for him the division between humans of different skin is inherent and Negros and Caucasians are different races and are valued differently by Atticus. He clearly wants even-handed justice, but in terms of the same treatment for the white-man and the coloured-man, not just… men. In Atticus the whites are always superior and the Negros are untermenschen. Atticus is noble and feels the oppressed colored people need looking after but Atticus never equates himself to a colored man. He might care for them and bridge the racial divide with his principles but to Atticus white men and colored men are clearly considered by him to be different species.

I find Atticus to be awfully superior (better than the other white-folk and different from those colored-folk) whilst ignorant of his racist status.

Anyway, there are many who read it like I did, although the vast masses interpret it very differently and consider Atticus non-racially biased.

To me this is crux of the racial problem in today’s world. There so many who consider themselves non-racist but who on the inside will always subconsciously distinguish themselves as a different from other races.

(Schindler's List did the same bridge across the race oppression premise so much better IMO. Oskar Schindler is the real Atticus Finch and without the condescension and sugar coating.)

Well then, onward toward the vindication.

Memphis (thanks!) has mentioned in length Harper Lee’s sequel novel ‘Go Set a Watchman’ and interested with a view to purchase and read a copy, I set about researching my potential investment of money and time.         

Wow!

I mean WOW!

Turns out (directly from Lee’s pen this time) that Atticus is a racist!

The loyal ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ lovers who feed on the sugar-water like Hummingbirds are up in arms! How can this be? Outrage! Many are spurning and decrying the ‘Watchman’ because it ruins their decades old misconception of ‘Mockingbird.’  Har! Idiots.

You can Google any variation of ‘Go Set a Watchman Racist Atticus’ and harvest a plethora of links upon the subject.

I hit this one first, and therein lays my vindication. (There are dozens more along the same lines).

http://jezebel.com/atticus-was-always-a … 1718996096

Harper Lee wrote a book in the 60’s that I read as a child and I garnered a view from that book that the world told me was wrong. That is until July 14, 2015, when Harper Lee, as her final act informs me that I was right all along, as she confirms beyond any doubt that her character Atticus Finch is (and was all along) a racist but doesn’t even know it.

I called it! Harper Lee, me and you were in on from the start.

Now my case IS finally closed.

Go argue with these…

https://newrepublic.com/article/122295/ … cism-years

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/j … t-watchman

and the dozens of others that pop-up.

Har!

You are totally right, it is great parenting, like we all do every single day.

Although, I can’t help but wonder (should I need to tell the kids) what would be the 'value of the man’ fraction for an indigenous native North American or a crippled rail road worker of Chinese extraction under the Atticus rule of parenting?

“Atticus says cheatin‘ a colored man is 10 times worse than cheatin’ a white man, whilst cheatin‘  a red man is 8.7 times worse and cheatin‘ a yellow man 5.9 times worse”

How about a Mick? The Irish are white but like the Polish they surely don’t make the mark of a proper Alabama white man?

Now that it’s been explained it is obvious that the ‘ten times less of white mans-worth’ rule that Atticus is drumming into his children is correct. I see now that his advice is not racist or elitist because Atticus is simply educating the kids upon the way that HIS WORLD is; giving them a worldly-wise fact from the voice of experience in order to convert their childishly innocent equality instincts into harsh reality; he’s merely promoting the white-man, black-man value equation as an edict of life, like a good parent would to his 6 or 7 year old child, so they’ll know where they stand.

Atticus the lawyer advocates that it is ten times better to cheat a white man than it is a black man. As a lawyer I suppose he would expect this equation to be upheld by a court of justice relating to the adjudged seriousness of the crime and in relation to compensation and sentencing?

Whilst he is equating the value of a crime in accordance with a man’s skin and since the crime the novel is centred around is an alleged rape; using Atticus equations do you think it would it be ten times worse for a white man to rape a black woman than it would a black man to rape a white woman? I ask only because from the book I gather that the people of that time and place seem to inherently hold the inverse opinion.

Don't hit a man when he's down? If only it were as unilateral as that in its basis.

The way I read it is that race is a consideration. Poor white trash being just as disadvantaged as black men, but assuming they are ten times better on account of their skin. A race apart.

Don't hit a man when he's down, implies (as it should) that a man is a man with no distinction between race or ethnicity.

Although what Lee is showing us through Atticus and her novel in general is that a man is not considered a man, he is (naturally) considered either a white man or a black man. It is her premise.

To make the distinction that there are two types of men (two different races) is of course racist in essence, but the shock to the reader is the automatic distinction between white and black is carried like an instinct in the liberal Atticus who probably considers himself non-racist.

I find it strange to be honest because Finch is not from the Southern American Slavery/Plantation linage (where racism would be inherent). Much is made in the outset of the novel of his forebear, the Methodist Simon Finch, from Cornwall England.

I know the novel is set "IN THAT WORLD" but it still makes my shit itch.

.... And as much as I don't like to wet-noodle thrash a man when he's down, I find you "guity" as charged.

Condescending indeed.

A quote from the text....

“Atticus says cheatin‘ a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin’ a white man,” I muttered. “Says it’s the worst thing you can do.”

Condescending, patronizing, discriminatory, elitist, demeaning, superior, belittling, downright hypocritical from the man who also spouts that all men should be treated equally. The very opposite of equality, Atticus treats a colored man with condescension but is so self-absorbed that he thinks it kindness.

This book is making me squirm on several levels.

Elanor felt she was about to discover who'd been pissing on her parlour carpet.

You can take that to the bank and smoke it. I tend to burn bridges as I come to them. Putting the idiot into idiom, I was probably three sheep to the wind when I wrote that.

The metronome thump of the grandfather clock beside the door accompanied her husband’s slow beat up the stairs; but the typhoid had hollowed her when it took their baby and she couldn’t face the funeral, couldn’t face him, home now from the burial; couldn’t face a life with little Jessica not in it.

Looks like a decent pros and cons argument here from a teacher;

https://goodbyteaching.wordpress.com/20 … nt-page-1/

I'm reading a bit about To Kill a Mocking Bird, here and online. I have read Memphis Trace's comments upon the disparity between reading the novel as a younger person and then re-reading as a mature adult.

I guess I was 13 or 14yrs old when I read it. That's a good while ago (a distant memory) and I think I should re-read it now to update my opinion.

Oh, yeah? What about page 53 where it is written;

“Dill saw it next. He put his hands to his face.”

How do think it feels to traverse an entire lifetime being asked if I’ve seen Boo Radley lately?

To like something and to love something are very different and I'm sorry that you became confused upon the two sentiments.

However, I fully understand your point, but my comment was made upon the high-level general perspective. The book is selected by Education Authorities in many nations for student study, more so for the moral and sociological lesson that its exposure of racism and inequality delivers, than it is an example of fine prose literature.

Your answer is based upon a subjective perspective. You happen to like the book on a personal basis, and that is a wonderful thing, although it doesn’t alter my point. It has nothing to do with my point.

I am extremely fond of Joseph Heller's 'Catch 22'. I have a ‘working’ paperback copy and a 1st edition hardback that I treasure and was bought surprisingly cheaply (I thought) on Ebay. I’ve read the book several times (four or five), save to say that I love that novel and it is also safe to say that it has been influential upon my life.

Catch 22 is another novel that is often selected for student study; more for the moral and sociological lesson that its exposure of the insanity or war and the irrational craziness of the military machine, than it is an example of fine prose literature...
 
…but I love it as you love Mocking Bird; because it is a good story. I love Joseph Heller’s gallows humour within Catch 22; the sardonic wit, the insane scenarios, the cynicism, the irony and mainly because after ten years in the military, I can relate and it stirs me.

Catch 22 and to kill a Mocking Bird are examples of books that we (as students) are asked to read with our brains. We are instructed to interpret and analyse the messages these novel deliver in order to aid our sociological and political development upon a humanitarian basis. There is an agenda (that could be described as politically correct) behind the selection of these novels. (Just as, if the Axis powers had won WW2 and Nazism had prevailed, To Kill a Mocking Bird, (if written), would be high on the bonfire list and the author persecuted or worse). 

I certainly don't love Catch 22 because it's politically correct to read it. I too have a brain, thank you. I love it because it's a good story and when I read it, I put my brain aside and I read with my heart.

Mocking Bird is in my brain and Catch 22 is in my heart. We love what we love; chalk and cheese; different strokes; one man's poison is another man's medicine; variety is the spice…. etc. etc.

Readers who read with their heart have a much better time of it that than those who read with their brain. I would heartily recommend that you try it.    x

Blue touchpaper lit, he dons steel helmet and retires twenty paces.

He already has a fatwa issued to him, and now a knock upon his door could mean the Spanish Inquisition have come calling. The KKK probably want his bollocks too.

Sorry, that was a joke, it was a very poor one.

...but to be fair, other posts were comparing 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' with the Bible in terms of popularity, so Max's post had context.

I couldn't buy into Atticus either. A cardboard stooge, a puppet of the book's agenda.

I remember spouting as much, give or take a word, when writing a synopsis of 'Mocking Bird' whilst at school.

(How I used to make my English Literature teacher squirm and grimace, frown, grin and laugh with my opinions upon the literature he fed us. I was irreverent and vociferous, young and impetuous, filled with passion and arrogance. He is a kindly and learned man, a gentle soul. He taught my daughters, in turn too. He shared with them and their respective classes, some of my old work that he'd kept for a decade and a half. One of my finest moments (self-indulgent pride) was to find that something I'd written at aged 15 became an 'example piece' for an English Literature teacher who trooped it out at least once to every class he ever taught from the day I wrote it, until the day he retired).