The Complexities of a Childhood Hero

The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism.

by Malcolm Gladwell: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/10/090810fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

My Reaction to the above article:

Who read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and did not fall in love with the strong, brilliant and moral character of Atticus Finch? This article is heart breaking. I had a strange reaction to it when I read it and I’d like to try and break it down:

–         I felt and still feel eternally grateful to my very good friend and fellow debater, Sam, for sending it my way. He prefaced that it had me all over it and that is somewhat calming. I like to know that there is a visible trend in my questions and explorations. Some solid ground remembered. However…

–         I felt that I lost a childhood hero. I mean, I argued with my parents and brothers for days that our new kitten should not be named Max (after some violent general in ancient history) but instead Atticus because who doesn’t want a cat who’s name bears with it so much social justice? (I lost that battle, if you’re interested. His name is Max.) While reading, my brain overloaded trying to justify Finch’s choices. But these were excuses. Respect for law can only go so far. It is valuable but should probably be re-examined when innocent individuals are sentenced so unjustly (from Finch’s perspective this sentence was unjust). Another excuse I mentally made was that he had to rebuke hatred for individuals like Hitler because he should not have wanted to raise his child to foster this kind of emotion in anyway. Yet, Hitler orchestrated millions of brutal deaths and I agree with the author: probably a good thing for a child to grow up hating. If you want social change then you should call things what they are. There is so much untapped potential in his character as an agent of change.

–         The heart wrenching part of the article is about Mayella. The swap of prejudices is in no way progress. I agree. And the construction of Mayella in the courtroom seems like a dastardly low move for Finch and thus for Lee. (Is it more dastardly, though, for the me to not have empathized/recognized her plight – in society and in that courtroom?) It is a difficult choice then to trust the apparently honest words of Tom Robinson and the narrator in unfolding the story as such. And what happens in real life when we pick a side? I’ve no desire to further entrench racial hatred but I am also far from desirous of a society that doubts the words of the raped and dehumanizes members of lower classes.

Atticus, you might not be the man I thought you were.

The complexities keep coming.