Children Once, Not Forever: Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman and Growing Up

Abstract

This is the first law review article to analyze Harper Lee's novel Go Set a Watchman and in particular its portrayal of the famed attorney Atticus Finch. This article argues that the latest, controversial depiction of Atticus Finch is not a sharp departure from the depiction of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. The notion that Go Set a Watchman presents a new or different Atticus Finch is predicated on ahistorical assumptions and a willful misreading of the ominous, violent, and dangerous world of the fictional, yet eminently recognizable, Maycomb, Alabama.

Keywords: Atticus Finch, Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman, To Kill a Mockingbird