For any polished reader of Harper Lee, the release of her latest novel Go Set a
Watchman in July 2015 has thoroughly been a shock to both readership and
critics as well, especially when it comes to the virtues of equality, love and
racial justice maintained in Lee's first and still most cherished classic novel
ever, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), which are epitomised more particularly
through attorney Atticus Finch. The article right here tries to show that though
Watchman has often been represented in the media as a sequel to Mockingbird,
the characters and incidents are entirely different, especially when it comes to
the portrayal of Atticus. The objective of the present article is to strike a
comparison between the character(s) of Atticus in both Mockingbird and
Watchman. A thorough, critical reading of the texts shows a considerable
difference between the two ‘Atticuses'. In Mockingbird, he is simply
portrayed as a moral exemplar for many— simply, an idealist. No wonder, he
accepts to defend a black labourer falsely convicted of raping a white woman
in Jem Crow-era Alabama. Though he is sure that such an action may turn his
life upside down, he pays next to no attention to all that and defends the
innocent black man, thereby jeopardising his own life, reputation and family
members. The Atticus of Watchman is no longer the liberal-minded man
wholeheartedly fighting for racial justice in his segregated society; rather, he is
a rabid racist and a white supremacist who takes the innate superiority of the
white race over the black race for granted—something that makes the reviews
given so far about the novel, unlike its predecessor, so negative. Nevertheless,
whatever the opinions of Lee's readership and critics who still identify her as
the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Mockingbird, the ideals
of her first novel have notably eclipsed, not perceived as admirable, and,
furthermore, given way to the politics of pragmatism or matter-of-factness in
her second and last novel – Watchman.