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Harper Lee, the award winning one hit wonder author of To Kill A Mockingbird. At least that is what everyone thought until earlier this year a so-called “first draft” of her famous novel was found and published with the name Go Set A Watchman. I, like many other curious fans rushed out to purchase the first thoughts and ideas of Harper Lee, only to be let down with the quality and content of her original work. Her first idea when thinking about writing this sort of book was to go at it from Jean Louise’s perspective as an adult. It continues to elaborate on the topic of racism in the 1950’s but starts to stray form the main idea and focus more on the internal conflict in Jean Louise. In this journal I will be evaluating the novel Go Set A Watchman.
one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it is a sin to
Shaw-Thornburg, Angela. “On Reading To Kill a Mockingbird: Fifty Years Later.” Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: New Essays. Meyer, Michael J. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2010. 113-127. Print.
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee sheds light upon the controversy of racism and justice in his classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The notion of equality in accordance with the law and the pursuit of justice are hindered by racial discrimination. The essence of human nature is pondered. Are we inclined to be good or in the wrath of evil? The novel reflects on the contrasting nature of appearance versus reality.
This concept of hatred spreads past, even the bounds of individuality. Notably, this collective hatred shows in the moment the mob comes by the Jailhouse to lynch Tom Robinson, for a crime that he has not even been found guilty of by a court. This attitude and contempt stemming from the collective hatred of the mob. This proves itself to be more true when looking at the definition of the collective unconscious, which “is a level of unconscious shared with other members of the human species comprising latent memories from our ancestral and evolutionary past.”(McLeod). The men who are coming by to lynch Tom are doing so because he is not like them. He is black. In the end, it takes a little girl to calm them. Atticus says “That proves something—that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human.”(Lee 210). Their rage and anger directed collectively towards Tom Robinson is only quelled by remembering their own individual humanity. This scene incorporates the sense of bigotry that encompasses the whole mob, while having it quelled by the aspect of enlightenment through the understanding of an individual’s humanity. Ultimately this illustrates the inherent ability to grow out of groupthink and into an individual understanding and power for goodness.
Harper Lee is an author that most people know of due to her writing controversial novels and her novels also being classified as classics. It seems like most middle school and high school book lists consist of Lee’s most famous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, which is about a single father with two children, the Finches, who fights for the rights and lives of black Americans. When the novel was published, it was considered very controversial because it dealt with white Americans fighting for black Americans, which was not the norm at the time the book was published in 1960. Her novel To Kill a Mockingbird was not her only controversial novel though; she released a second novel titled Go Set a Watchman in 2015 which is also about the Finches, just when the children are adults, and with a twist that the beloved audience of Lee’s first novel do not approve of ever so slightly. Although the books are very different with the aging of characters and opposing views from the characters in the first novel, there is one theme that is very prominent in both novels. The common theme between the novels is gender equality. Harper Lee uses gender inequality in both novels to show her readers
Harper Lee’s only book, To Kill a Mockingbird, is the stereotypical tale of childhood and innocence, yet it successfully incorporates mature themes, like the racism in the South at the time, to create a masterpiece of a work that has enraptured people’s minds and hearts for generations. According to esteemed novelist Wally Lamb, “It was the first time in my life that a book had sort of captured me. That was exciting; I didn’t realize that literature could do that” (111). Scout’s witty narration and brash actions make her the kind of heroine you can’t help but root for, and the events that take place in Maycomb County are small-scale versions of the dilemmas that face our world today. Mockingbird is a fantastically written novel that belongs on the shelves of classic literature that everyone should take the time to read and appreciate for its execution of style and the importance of its content.
Harper Lee was the youngest of four children, a situation that often made her feel it was necessary to act out: “As a child, Harper Lee was an unruly tomboy. She fought on the playground. She talked back to teachers. She was bored with school and resisted any sort of conformity” (Stark). Her sister, Alice, who was fifteen years older, agreed with this description, admitting that Harper “isn’t much of a conformist” (Shields 2). In fact, Harper tried her best to be incongruous and not blend in with the other kids. She was often thought of as a social outcast to people who didn’t know her. Countless would agree that she often acted impetuously and without thought. She had not the restraint and self control as a child should, and often caused harm t...
Nelle Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird has been considered one of the classic works of American literature. To Kill A Mockingbird is the work ever published by Nelle Harper Lee, and it brought her great fame. However, Nelle Harper Lee has published several other articles in popular magazines. Nelle Harper Lee is not an individual who desires to be in the light and little is known about her personal life. At the time it is believed she is possible working on her memoirs. The fictional work of To Kill A Mockingbird plots many elements close to real events in America’s struggle over civil rights.
Harper Lee has a number of characters that contribute to the novel and violent scenes in To Kill a Mockingbird, some that have meaning and some that do not. Some characters that appear often and some that have a minimal role in being seen in the novel, but the characters that do not appear often seem to have the biggest impact on the novel. There are three characters that are looked down on by society around them, one because of race and two because of their morals. Society disregarded these people simply because they were afraid that they could be like them and the unknown. Lee uses violence and alienation to help depict the things that are wrong within the small society.
Life in the mid-1950s was not easy for everyone. Racism was still a big issue during that time period. In Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, Jean Louise returns back to Maycomb from New York to visit her father. As the book goes on Jean Louise remembers what means to be a resident in Maycomb, understand the meaning of racism and the issues deep in her family.
Set in the future of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman examines the town Jean Louise Finch calls home. During one visit back to Maycomb, Alabama, Jean Louise is confronted with how the town has changed without warning during her absence. She struggles with the differences in the way people are acting and wonders whether it was her or them that transformed. Her overlying concerns about race in society surround this theme throughout the plot.
3. My teacher gave a test a week; a predilection that most of the class disliked.
Harper Lee is said to have created “the greatest American hero” but in Go Set a Watchman this seventy two year old villain leaves a lost daughter by the name of Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch. Through her entire life, Jean Louise looked up to her father. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is a piece of humanity left during a hateful time in Maycomb, Alabama from 1933 until 1935. Atticus Finch was not only Jean Louise’s father, but he was her teacher and her best friend. The relationship we see between this father daughter pair was not only crucial in the moral development of who Jean Louise is as a child, woman and every title she ever claimed, but also as a human.This, would become the foundation of who is Jean Louise Finch and how she sees
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. You know Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was misperceived at first. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names, but after he led Santa’s sleigh, they loved him. Misperceptions like this happen all throughout Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. As you read the novel you see original judgments made about characters transform into new conceptions and new understandings. Some characters twist your views of them on purpose, others do it involuntarily. To Kill a Mockingbird shows this happening over and over again. All you have to do is look for it.
Black and white, right and wrong; do decisions that simple and clear even exist? Does a decision ever mean gaining everything without giving anything up? Many characters in To Kill A Mockingbird are forced to make difficult, heart wrenching decisions that have no clear right answer. Harper Lee presents many of these important decisions in To Kill A Mockingbird as ethical dilemmas, or situations that require a choice between two difficult alternatives. Both of these alternatives have unpleasant aspects and question morals and ethics. A person is put in an awkward position, with their mind saying contradicting things. These dilemmas are presented in many different ways. The decisions in the beginning of the book are simple and can be solved quite easily, yet they are symbolic of later decisions. Other dilemmas place adult-like decisions in the lap of a child. One dilemma concerned a man burdened with the strict traditions of the South. Then there are the two biggest dilemmas, Atticus' decision to take the case and Heck Tate's choice between truth and the emotional well being of a man. Lee's ingenious storyline is established by these crucial and mentally arduous choices faced by the characters.