Something has changed in the town of Maycomb, Alabama.
Anyone who was a high school student has probably read Harper Lee’s world famous, Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird at some point in their lives. Like it or dislike it, many people who read the novel fell in love with the characters in Mockingbird, which include favorites such as amiable and tomboyish Jean-Louise Finch, also known as “Scout”, her older brother, Jem Finch, and their beloved father, the fair and kind lawyer, Atticus Finch.
In Lee’s original novel, which was published in 1960 and took place in 1933, Atticus Finch had defended an African-American man named Tom Robinson, who had been accused of raping a young, white woman. Doing so caused ridicule to his family by the citizens of Maycomb, but Atticus nevertheless agreed to defend him. Throughout the first novel, Atticus is shown as a loving father and a kind man who teaches his children to treat everyone equally and with respect. Watchman now shows the change in the character of Atticus Finch, a man glamorized by his daughter since her childhood, who at the end of the novel, is revealed as a regular man.
In Watchman, which is set twenty years after the events in the previous novel, much has changed. The novel is told in the point of view of twenty-six year old Jean-Louise, who has dropped her childhood nickname and is now living in New York. Her older brother, Jem, has passed away of a heart condition. The novel begins with her trip by train back to Maycomb to visit her ailing father, Atticus.
But Atticus Finch is not the same man he was. In the events of Mockingbird, Atticus was said to be in his fifties, despite having young children. In Watchman, he is in his seventies, and suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. He has also become more of a right-wing character than he was in the original novel.
While Watchman keeps some of the frivolity that occurred between Jean-Louise, Jem and their childhood friend, Charles Baker Harris, known as “Dill”, through humorous vignettes and memories that Jean-Louise has, Watchman still lets the reader know that the events of the previous novel have faded and that since the story takes place in a different time period. New issues and events have arisen, although the they still involve the topic of race in the south.
In the book, Jean-Louise tries to understand her father’s new views, but finds herself feeling betrayed and upset that Atticus’ opinions are so different from the days when he was defending Tom Robinson in court. During some of the scenes where Jean-Louise finds out of her father’s new opinions, she flashes back in time to her childhood days. This portrays Jean-Louise’s viewpoint that her father should always be the man that he was when she was a child.
Jean-Louise first notices the change in Atticus when she finds a pamphlet in Atticus’ mail called “The Black Plague” and reads it. She finds out that it contains racial slurs, and asks her aunt Alexandra, Atticus’ sister if she knows about the pamphlet. She informs Jean-Louise matter-of-factly that she does, and that Atticus and Henry, Jean-Louise’s childhood friend and boyfriend, have gone to attend a Citizen’s Counsel Meeting. She says that Atticus himself is on the board of directors and her boyfriend, Henry “one of the staunchest members” (103).
This novel is well written, but it doesn’t read with perhaps the same import as Mockingbird. Mockingbird’s point of view from the children was unique and added a “loss of innocence” element to the story that was jarring. Watchman is now told from an adult’s point of view throughout and is a more subdued account. While the flashes of memory that Jean-Louise has transported us back to the events of the first novel, Watchman has a unique style of its own. Jean-Louise is the only character in the novel who stays true to her Mockingbird counterpart, ‘Scout”, her views guided by a father who she refuses to see as any different from that past time in the courthouse, but who has changed a great deal.
While it is an interesting read, Watchman seems to wrap up rather abruptly. The events at the end of the novel are bittersweet, and while the conclusion will not leave the reader unsatisfied, you will feel a pang of nostalgia for the old Atticus, the one who guided Scout and Jem in the direction of fairness and justice all those years ago.