Go Set A Watchman

“She heard her father’s voice, a tiny voice talking in the warm comfortable past. Gentlemen, if there’s one slogan in this world I believe, it is this: equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” 

Jean Louise tries to make sense of seeing her father in the citizens’ council, in the context of her beliefs about her father and her worldview. She recalls her father’s statement of his deepest beliefs and considers how it is the antithesis of what his presence in the council would indicate. The description of the past as “warm” and “comfortable” also foreshadows her use of denial and nostalgia as coping strategies and contrasts her comfort levels with her simple past and current complexities.

“She stared at her father sitting to the right of Mr. O’Hanlon, and she did not believe what she saw. She stared at Henry sitting to the left of Mr. O’Hanlon, and she did not believe what she saw […] they were sitting all over the courtroom. Men of substance and character, responsible men, good men. Men of all varieties and reputations…it seemed that the only man in the county not present was Uncle Jack.”

Jean Louise is struck by the horrifying revelation that people she believed to be good people are all members of a hate group. She realizes that for this occurrence to make any sense, she must have misunderstood the nature of their characters for her whole life. This is Jean Louise’s first experience in realizing that racists are not always labeled as such and can even be men she otherwise respects and admires.

“She knew little of the affairs of men, but she knew that her father’s presence at a table with a man who spewed filth from his mouth—did that make it less filthy? No. It condoned.” 

Jean Louise considers what her father’s presence at the meeting must mean. By participating in—even leading—a meeting of such an organization where a man can proudly spew hate speech without contradiction, her father is complicit in the same evil. This is particularly upsetting because her father is the one who taught her what complicity means.

“She felt herself turning green with nausea, and she put her head down; try as she might she could not think, she only knew, and what she knew was this: The one human being she had ever fully and wholeheartedly trusted had failed her; the only man she had ever known to whom she could point and say with expert knowledge, ‘He is a gentleman, in his heart he is a gentleman,’ had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly.” 

This is the critical moment when Jean Louise finally considers how profound the realization of her father’s beliefs is to her. She has lost respect and faith not only in her father, but also in humanity as he was the only one she truly trusted. She views this betrayal as a deeply personal one conducted on the public stage.

“What are you all doing to us?” 

When Jean Louise visits Calpurnia, she hopes to both gain an explanation of her father’s behavior and be comforted by the only mother figure she has ever known. When Calpurnia draws a line between them by using her “company manners,” Jean Louise cries out in pain, asking what she is doing to her. This question, Calpurnia’s response, not only solidifies her perspective of where Jean Louise lies in terms of “us and them,” but also demands that Jean Louise recognize that she is fundamentally a part of the problem, because even if she does not hold with Atticus’s views, she has done nothing to help Calpurnia or other African Americans.

“Why doesn’t their flesh creep? How can they devoutly believe everything they hear in church and then say the things they do and listen to the things they hear without throwing up? I thought I was a Christian but I’m not. I’m something else and I don’t know what. Everything I have ever taken for right and wrong these people have taught me—these same, these very people. So it’s me, it’s not them. Something has happened to me.”

Jean Louise wonders how she could have lived in the same town and gone to the same church as so many people who believe in white supremacy. She considers the hypocrisy of claiming to be a Christian but treating some of God’s people as inferior and determines that if her town is Christian, then she must not be. She ruminates on the idea of having somehow learned a morality system from people who do not abide by that same system. Most of all, this moment constitutes Jean Louise’s realization that the beliefs of an entire town have not changed in the year since her last visit; they have always been there, unbeknownst to her. This is a fundamental turning point in her journey toward self-actualization as she confronts several challenges to her perception and identity.

“You will not believe me, but I will tell you…I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody, not just Negroes. I was given to understand that the reverse was to be despised. That is the way I was raised, by a black woman and a white man.”

In her internal defense of her family and hometown to a personified New York City, Jean Louise tries to explain that she has good values—and that she learned said values from her apparently racist father. This imagined dialogue reveals her internal struggle as she tries to understand how she could have the values that she has when she has been taught them by someone who may never have held them himself, despite having raised her with an African American woman.

“You must have lived it. If a man says to you, ‘This is the truth,’ and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught out by him again. But a man who has lived by the truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing. I think that is why I’m nearly out of my mind….” 

Jean Louise internally recognizes why she feels so lost as a result of her father’s behavior. It is not only that she has been mistaken in his character, but also that her worldview was built around her understanding of her father. As such, when this understanding is proven false, she has no basis to understand the world around her anymore.

“Blind, that’s what I am. I never opened my eyes. I never thought to look into people’s hearts, I looked only in their faces. Stone blind…Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone set a watchman in church yesterday. He should have provided me with one. I need a watchman to lead me around and declare what he seeth every hour on the hour. I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference. I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is.”

This moment shows Jean Louise’s internal conflict. It acknowledges her own part in the events which lead up to her crisis, building the motif of blindness. It also begins to explain the meaning of the title of the book.

“Has it really? It depends how you look at it. If you were sitting on the sidewalk in Paris, you’d say certainly. But look again. The remnants of that little army had children—God, how they multiplied—the South went through the Reconstruction with only one permanent political change: there was no more slavery. The people became no less than what they were to begin with—in some cases they became horrifyingly more. They were never destroyed. They were ground into the dirt and up they popped. Up popped Tobacco Road, and up popped the ugliest, most shameful aspect of it all—the breed of white man who lived in open economic competition with freed Negroes. For years and years all that man thought he had that made him any better than his black brothers was the color of his skin. He was just as dirty, he smelled just as bad, he was just as poor. Nowadays he’s got more than he ever had in his life, he has everything but breeding, he’s freed himself from every stigma, but he sits nursing his hangover of hatred.”

When Jean Louise claims that the Civil War can have nothing to do with the current situation and racial tensions because it has been over for some time, Uncle Jack contradicts her. He explains that losing the Civil War did not change the deeply held beliefs of the white South. Instead, descendants of that conflict have quietly held onto these beliefs and are still resentful of the outcome of the war. Despite the fact that the lower classes of whites have been able to rise in other ways, they still hate the African Americans because if race does not matter—if they are not better than the African Americans because of race—then they are no better than them at all, and they cannot live with this challenge to their identity.

“Now, at this very minute, a political philosophy foreign to it is being pressed on the South, and the South’s not ready for it—we’re finding ourselves in the same deep waters. As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons. I hope to God it’ll be a comparatively bloodless Reconstruction this time.”

Uncle Jack highlights the similarities between the current sociopolitical climate and the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. Namely, the North has imposed its own views on the South, and the South is unprepared to adjust to them. He expresses hope that the South’s adjustment to these new views will be less violent than the last Reconstruction period. This is not only an accurate assessment, but an explanation of the backdrop and ultimate catalyst for the story.

“Human birth is most unpleasant. It’s messy, it’s extremely painful, sometimes it’s a risky thing. It is always bloody. So it is with civilization. The South’s in its last agonizing birth pain. It’s bringing forth something new and I’m not sure I like it, but I won’t be here to see it. You will. Men like me and my brother are obsolete and we’ve got to go, but it’s a pity we’ll carry with us the meaningful things of this society—there were some good things in it.” 

Uncle Jack describes the birth of the new world, one with more racial equality, in terms of human birth. He relates the current tension and strife with the birthing pains before an entirely new life—the South of the future—comes into existence. He admits that his generation has no place in that world but also laments that the good aspects of their way of life will also be lost in the transition. His description not only explains the current sociopolitical situation, but also parallels Jean Louise’s own situation. She is on the cusp of birthing a new identity and is experiencing the discomfort and pain that are necessary in that process.

“Hell is eternal apartness. What had she done that she must spend the rest of her years reaching out with yearning for them, making secret trips to long ago, making no journey to the present? I am their blood and bones, I have dug in this ground, this is my home. But I am not their blood, the ground doesn’t care who digs it, I am a stranger at a cocktail party.”

Jean Louise is agonized by her sense of otherhood. She feels she no longer belongs, not only in Maycomb, but also with her dearest loved ones. She feels that she should be at home with them but has now been cast out into no-man’s-land with only her memories of when she felt she belonged to comfort her. This sense of displacement is a key aspect of her identity crisis.

“Jean Louise, will you stop one second? Please? Listen to me. I know I’m not much, but think one minute. Please think. This is my life, this town, don’t you understand that? God damn it, I’m a part of Maycomb County’s trash, but I’m part of Maycomb County. I’m a coward, I’m a little man, I’m not worth killing, but this is my home. What do you want me to do, go shout from the housetops that I am Henry Clinton and I’m here to tell you you’re all wet? I’ve got to live here, Jean Louise. Don’t you understand that?” 

Hank tries to explain his point of view to Jean Louise. While he may not agree with the racist ideology supported by the citizens’ council, he sees participation in it as a necessary evil, something he must do to be accepted in the place he considers home. He points out that his social standing makes any attempt at criticizing these views both potentially harmful to his career and useless as no one will listen to him.

“She had been half willing to sponge out what she had seen and heard, creep back to New York, and make him a memory. A memory of the three of them, Atticus, Jem, and her, when things were uncomplicated and people did not lie. But she would not have him compound the felony. She could not let him add hypocrisy to it.” 

In this moment, Jean Louise decides to confront her father. She had been considering slinking back to New York without doing so to put her recent revelations out of her mind and continue loving her family, if from a distance. However, she is not willing to ignore the additional “crime” of hypocrisy from her father. This decision directly leads to the climax of the story.

“‘Good Lord, I didn’t get mad with the Court because of the Negroes. Negroes slapped the brief on the bench, all right, but that wasn’t what made me furious. I was ravin’ at what they were doing to the Tenth Amendment and all the fuzzy thinking. The Negroes were—’ Incidental to the issue in this war…to your own private war.” 

Jean Louise finally understands what her uncle tried to explain: While racism is the catalyst of her current situation, it is not the essence of it. Her true struggle is in what that racism reveals about her father, her worldview, and her own identity.

“Atticus, the NAACP hasn’t done half of what I’ve seen in the past two days. It’s us…Yes sir, us. You. Has anybody, in all the wrangling and high words over states’ rights and what kind of government we should have, thought about helping the Negroes? We missed the boat, Atticus. We sat back and let the NAACP come because we were so furious at what we knew the Court was going to do, so furious at what it did, we naturally started shouting n*****. Took it out on them, because we resented the government. When it came we didn’t give an inch, we just ran instead. When we should have tried to help ’em live with the decision, it was like Bonaparte’s retreat we ran so fast. I guess it’s the first time in our history that we ever ran, and when we ran we lost. Where could they go? Who could they turn to? I think we deserve everything we’ve gotten from the NAACP and more.”

Jean Louise explains her perspective on the issue of desegregation and the NAACP. She informs her father that this is not an organization that has come out of nowhere to ruin the lives of white southerners. Instead, it was a natural consequence of the actions and attitudes of the white South. She goes on to take responsibility for her part in enabling the suffering of the African American people and further asserts that white Southerners, including herself, have received less than their just due from the NAACP.

“Honey, you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people. You should know it, you’ve seen it all your life. They’ve made terrific progress in adapting themselves to white ways but they’re far from it yet. They were coming along fine, traveling at a rate they could absorb, more of ’em voting than ever before. Then the NAACP stepped in with its fantastic demands and shoddy ideas of government—can you blame the South for resenting being told what to do about its own people by people who have no idea of its daily problems? This NAACP doesn’t care whether a Negro man owns or rents his land, how well he can farm, or whether or not he tries to learn a trade and stand on his own two feet—oh, no, all the NAACP cares about is that man’s vote. So can you blame the South for wanting to resist invasion by people who are apparently so ashamed of their race they want to get rid of it? How can you have grown up here, led the kind of life you’ve led, and can only see someone stomping on the Tenth Amendment? Jean Louise, they’re trying to wreck us—where have you been?”

Atticus tries to explain and defend his views to his daughter. He characterizes the situation as fundamentally adversarial and the NAACP and its supporters as malicious. He views them as trying to destroy the South and men like him rather than trying to build a world that is fairer to its people. He tries to conflate the South’s reactions with states’ rights to gain Jean Louise’s approval. Finally, he wonders aloud how she could have possibly concluded she has when it is so different from his own, implying that she must not have noticed the same things that he has.

“Defense, hell! Atticus, we aren’t on the Constitution now. I’m trying to make you see something. You now, you treat all people alike. I’ve never in my life seen you give that insolent, back-of-the-hand treatment half the white people down here give Negroes just when they’re talking to them, just when they ask ’em to do something. There’s no get-along-there-n***** in your voice when you talk to ’em. Yet you put out your hand in front of them as a people and say, ‘Stop here. This is as far as you can go!’” 

Jean Louise tries to convince her father to stop viewing the issue as an abstract concept or rule of law, but rather to view it as something that affects real people. She points out the hypocrisy of treating African Americans with dignity but also preventing them from advancing. This passage acknowledges the origins of her misunderstanding regarding his views but also represents acknowledgement and repudiation of his actual views.

“We’ve agreed that they’re backward, that they’re illiterate, that they’re dirty and comical and shiftless and no good, they’re infants and they’re stupid, some of them, but we haven’t agreed on one thing and we never will. You deny that they’re human […] You deny them hope. Any man in this world, Atticus, any man who has a head and arms and legs, was born with hope in his heart. You won’t find that in the Constitution, I picked that up in church somewhere. They are simple people, most of them, but that doesn’t make them subhuman. You are telling them that Jesus loves them, but not much. You are using frightful means to justify ends that you think are for the good of the most people. Your ends may well be right—I think I believe in the same ends—but you cannot use people as your pawns, Atticus. You cannot. Hitler and that crowd in Russia’ve done some lovely things for their lands, and they slaughtered tens of millions of people doing ’em.”

While Jean Louise acknowledges where her own biases are, she rejects her father’s general racist views. She provides a pathos argument, stating that killing someone’s hope is just as bad as killing their body to impress upon her father that his beliefs are similar to those that lead to genocide. Jean Louise further challenges her father’s ethical consequentialism and utilitarianism by stating that it is not acceptable to prevent the progress of African Americans for the benefit of white America. This climax of their disagreement represents a turning point in their relationship with each other and Jean Louise’s first steps into her own identity.

“[N]ow you, Miss, born with your own conscience, somewhere along the line fastened it like a barnacle to your father’s. As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man’s heart, and a man’s failings—I’ll grant you it may have been hard to see, he makes so few mistakes, but he makes ’em like all of us. You were an emotional cripple, leaning on him, getting the answers from him, assuming that your answers would always be his answers.” 

Uncle Jack explains how Jean Louise’s unhealthy idealization of her father has led to her crisis of identity. By idolizing her father, she projected her own expectations onto what she perceived as his character, then adopted it as her own. In this way, her identity was built on her misunderstanding of his character, leading to the conflict of the story.

“When you happened along and saw him doing something that seemed to you to be the very antithesis of his conscience—your conscience—you literally could not stand it. It made you physically ill. Life became hell on earth for you. You had to kill yourself, or he had to kill you to get you functioning as a separate entity.” 

Uncle Jack explains why being confronted with Atticus’s racism caused Jean Louise such suffering. Her entire understanding of the world was built around her preconceptions of her father’s moral values. When she realized that she had misinterpreted them, her relationship with her father was challenged, but so was her self-identity as she considered her own moral standards to be synonymous with his. She has to destroy this version of herself to accept and create a version of Jean Louise Finch who is independent from Atticus Finch.

“You’ve no doubt heard some pretty offensive talk since you’ve been home, but instead of getting on your charger and blindly striking it down, you turned and ran. You said, in effect, ‘I don’t like the way these people do, so I have no time for them.’ You’d better make time for ’em, honey, otherwise you’ll never grow. You’ll be the same at sixty as you are now—they you’ll be a case and not my niece. You have a tendency not to give anybody elbow room in your mind for their ideas, no matter how silly you think they are.” 

Uncle Jack has previously called Jean Louise a bigot. Here, he explains that she would rather run from ideas that conflict with her own than accept the discomfort of considering them. However, Uncle Jack reminds her that this discomfort is a necessary part of growth and that to have a healthy mind, she must continue to grow and, therefore, consider the opinions of others, even when she finds them abhorrent.