Internal Conflict In To Kill A Mockingbird

“Something’s wrong with me, it’s something about me. It has to be because all these people cannot have changed” (Go Set a Watchman 239). To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is considered a literary masterpiece among many. It’s forward thinking ideas makes it a profound novel for it’s time. Another book by Harper Lee is Go Set a Watchman, printed 55 years later. The novel is the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird that Lee had sent into the publishing company. Here, you can read an article on Harper Lee’s publisher. There are many differences between the characters of TKAM and the same ones in GSAW. One that stood out the most is the difference between Scout’s internal conflict in To Kill a Mockingbird and in Go Set a Watchman. In TKAM, Scout

The start of her internal struggle begins with Cecil Jacobs. “[Cecil Jacobs] had announced to the schoolyard the day before that [Atticus] defended niggers. I denied it, but told Jem. ‘What’d he mean sayin’ that?’ I asked… ‘Ask Atticus, he’ll tell you.’” (To Kill a Mockingbird 85). Scout then goes on to ask Atticus, “‘Do you defend niggers, Atticus?’... ‘Of course I do. Don’t say nigger… That’s common.’... ‘Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?’ ‘Of course they do, Scout.’ ‘Then why did Cecil say you defended niggers? He made it sound like you were runnin’ a still.’... ‘I’m simply defending a Negro- his name’s Tom Robinson’” (86). Here, Scout didn’t understand that if all lawyers defended Negroes, than why did Cecil Jacobs announce to the schoolyard like it was a bad thing? She begins to see how her town has racism in it and what racism is, such as with Cecil Jacobs saying that Atticus defending a black man is

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout struggled with understanding the racism in her town, while in Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise deals with racism in her family and people close to her. Jean Louise’s internal conflict begins when she finds a particular pamphlet in Atticus’s papers titled “The Black Plague”. Within the pamphlet, many reasons were given as to why whites were supposedly superior to blacks. After reading it, Jean Louise is upset and confronts her aunt. “‘What is this thing?’ she said… ‘Something of your father’s’” (Go Set a Watchman 148). Jean Louise goes on to talk at her aunt about how terrible the pamphlet is ending with, “‘It’s just that I never knew you went in for salacious reading material, Aunty’” (149). In a hurry, Jean Louise runs off to the citizens’ council meeting just to see what was going on. She couldn’t believe that Atticus and Hank were at it. She thinks, “Atticus and Hank were pulling something, they were there merely to keep an eye on things-Aunty said Atticus was on the board of directors. She was wrong. It was all a mistake; Aunty got mixed up on her facts sometimes…” (152). Jean Louise had always thought the best of Atticus and when Aunt Alexandra had told her about the council meeting, Jean Louise went into denial as she thinks that it was a mistake. That Atticus is only there to observe, maybe even put a stop to it. This is where her internal struggle