tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/to-kill-a-mockingbird-14771/articlesTo Kill a Mockingbird – The Conversation2022-09-16T12:17:16Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881972022-09-16T12:17:16Z2022-09-16T12:17:16ZThese high school ‘classics’ have been taught for generations – could they be on their way out?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484952/original/file-20220915-25735-8jjzi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C34%2C5734%2C3794&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">High school students have studied many of the same books for generations. Is it time for a change?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/william-shakespeare-royalty-free-image/168625734?adppopup=true">Andrew_Howe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you went to high school in the United States anytime since the 1960s, you were likely assigned some of the following books: Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” “Julius Caesar” and “Macbeth”; John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”; Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”; and William Golding’s “The Lord of the Flies.”</p>
<p>For many former students, these books and other so-called “classics” represent high school English. But despite the efforts of reformers, both <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?q=multicultural+canon&id=ED371401">past</a> and <a href="https://disrupttexts.org/">present</a>, the most frequently assigned titles have never represented America’s diverse student body.</p>
<p>Why did these books become classics in the U.S.? How have they withstood challenges to their status? And will they continue to dominate high school reading lists? Or will they be replaced by a different set of books that will become classics for students in the 21st century?</p>
<h2>The high school canon</h2>
<p>The set of books that is taught again and again, broadly across the country, is referred to by literature scholars and English teachers as “the canon.” </p>
<p>The high school canon has been shaped by many factors. Shakespeare’s plays, especially “Macbeth” and “Julius Caesar,” have been taught consistently <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1488191">since the beginning of the 20th century</a>, when the curriculum was determined by college entrance requirements. Others, like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” winner of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, were ushered into the classroom by current events – in the case of Lee’s book, <a href="https://time.com/3928162/mockingbird-civil-rights-movement/">the civil rights movement</a>. Some books just seem especially suited for classroom teaching: “Of Mice and Men” has a straightforward plot, easily identifiable themes and is under 100 pages long.</p>
<p>Titles become “traditional” when they are passed down through generations. As the education historian Jonna Perrillo observes, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/12/todays-book-bans-might-be-more-dangerous-than-those-past/">parents tend to approve</a> of having their children study the same books that they once did.</p>
<p>The last period of significant change to the canon was during the 1960s and 1970s, when the largest generation of the 20th century, the baby boomers, went to high school. For instance, in 1963, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/810053">a survey of 800 students</a> at Evanston Township High School in Illinois revealed that “To Kill a Mockingbird,” first published in 1960, was by far the “most enjoyed book,” followed by two books that had been published in the 1950s, J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” and Golding’s “The Lord of the Flies.” None of these books were yet traditional, yet they became so for the next generation.</p>
<p>A comparison of national surveys conducted in 1963 and 1988 shows how several books that were introduced to the classroom when the boomers were students had become classics when boomers were teachers.</p>
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<p>During the 1960s and 1970s, teachers even reframed “Romeo and Juliet” as a contemporary work. Lesson plans from the era referred to its adaptations into “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/811316">West Side Story</a>” – a musical that <a href="https://www.westsidestory.com/1957-broadway">initially came out in 1957</a> – and Franco Zefferelli’s <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?q=zeffirelli+romeo&id=ED026386">risqué 1968 film version</a> of Shakespeare’s story of star-crossed lovers. It became the perfect hook for ninth graders in a study of Shakespeare that would conclude in 12th grade with “Macbeth.”</p>
<h2>Efforts to diversify</h2>
<p>English education professor <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED309453">Arthur Applebee observed in 1989</a> that, since the 1960s, “leaders in the profession of English teaching have tried to broaden the curriculum to include more selections by women and minority authors.” But in the late 1980s, according to his findings, the high school “top ten” still included only one book by a woman – Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” – and none by minority authors.</p>
<p>At that time, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/23/opinion/the-mosaic-and-the-melting-pot.html">raging debate</a> was underway about whether America was a “melting pot” in which many cultures became one, or a colorful “mosaic” in which many cultures coexisted. Proponents of the latter view argued for a multicultural canon, but they were ultimately unable to establish one. A 2011 survey of Southern schools by Joyce Stallworth and Louel C. Gibbons, published in “English Leadership Quarterly,” found that the five most frequently taught books were all traditional selections: “The Great Gatsby,” “Romeo and Juliet,” Homer’s “The Odyssey,” Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.”</p>
<p>One explanation for this persistence is that the canon is not simply a list: It takes form as stacks of copies on shelves in the storage area known as the “book room.” Changes to the inventory require time, money and effort. Depending on the district, replacing a classic <a href="https://ncte.org/statement/material-selection-ela/">might require approval by the school board</a>. And it would create more work for teachers who are already maxed out. </p>
<p>“Too many teachers, probably myself included, teach from the traditional canon,” a teacher told Stallworth and Gibbons. “We are overworked and underpaid and struggle to find the time to develop quality lessons for new books.” </p>
<h2>The end of an era?</h2>
<p>Esau McCauley, the author of “Reading While Black,” describes the list of classics by white authors as the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/opinion/what-should-high-schoolers-read.html?searchResultPosition=1">pre-integration canon</a>.” At least two factors suggest that its dominance over the curriculum is coming to an end.</p>
<p>First, the battles over which books should be taught have become more intense than ever. On the one hand, progressives like the teachers of the growing <a href="https://disrupttexts.org/">#DisruptTexts movement</a> call for the inclusion of books by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-bipoc.html">Black, Native American and other authors of color</a> - and they question the status of the classics. On the other hand, conservatives have challenged or successfully banned the teaching of many new books that deal with gender and sexuality or race.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Toni Morrison wears her hair in gray locks under a cream-colored hat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484967/original/file-20220915-6106-4kq0zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conservatives have sought to ban books written by Toni Morrison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/toni-morrison-american-writer-novelist-editor-italy-news-photo/1129511612?adppopup=true">Leonardo Cendamo via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>PEN America, a nonprofit organization that fights for free expression for writers, reports “<a href="https://pen.org/banned-in-the-usa/">a profound increase</a>” in book bans. The outcome might be a literature curriculum that more resembles the political divisions in this country. Much more than in the past, students in conservative and progressive districts might read very different books.</p>
<p>Second, English Language Arts education itself is changing. State standards, such as those <a href="http://www.nysed.gov/common/nysed/files/912elastandardsglance.pdf">adopted by New York in 2017</a>, no longer make the teaching of literature the primary focus of English class. Instead, there is a new emphasis on “<a href="http://www.nysed.gov/curriculum-instruction/teaching-learning-information-literacy">information literacy</a>.” And while preceding generations of teachers voiced concerns about the distractions of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42832830">radio</a> and then <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42799566">television</a>, books may have an even smaller share of students’ attention in <a href="https://countercurrents.org/2021/04/impact-of-social-media-on-our-attention-span-and-its-drastic-aftermath/">the age of cellphones, the internet, social media and online gaming</a>.</p>
<p>“We no longer live in a print-dominant, text-only world,” the National Council of Teachers of English proclaims in <a href="https://ncte.org/statement/media_education/">a 2022 position statement</a>. The group calls for English teachers to put less emphasis on books in order to train students to use and analyze a variety of media. Accordingly, students across the country may not only have fewer books in common, but they also may be reading fewer books altogether.</p>
<h2>Why teach literature?</h2>
<p>Over generations, English teachers have voiced many reasons to teach books, and the canon in particular: to instill a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/816405">common culture</a>, foster <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED027289">citizenship</a>, build <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/820324">empathy</a> and cultivate <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4128931">lifelong readers</a>. These goals have little to do with the skills emphasized by contemporary academic standards. But if literature is going to continue to be an important part of American education, it is important to talk not only about what books to teach, but the reasons why.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to correct the year that “West Side Story” appeared as a musical.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Newman has received funding from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.</span></em></p>An English professor takes a critical look at why today’s students are assigned the same books that were assigned decades ago – and why American school curricula are so difficult to change.Andrew Newman, Professor and Chair, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1208562019-08-26T22:49:49Z2019-08-26T22:49:49ZThe crisis of anti-Black racism in schools persists across generations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289495/original/file-20190826-8845-r5zqko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Recent reports of Black students in Ontario reveal an ongoing pattern of racism including a lack of adequate reading materials.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wadi Lissa /Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent <a href="http://www.peelschools.org/aboutus/equity/Documents/We%20Rise%20Together%20report%20-%20Carl%20E%20James%20June%202019.pdf">reports</a> of the schooling experiences of Black students in elementary, middle and high school in Toronto tell a story of negligence and disregard. This disregard includes a lack of access to appropriate reading materials and supportive relationships with teachers and administrators. </p>
<p>In conversations about their school life, Black students talk about adverse treatment by their teachers and peers, including regular use of the “n-word.” </p>
<p>These issues contribute to alienating and problematic school days for Black students. And none of this is new: racism in Toronto and Ontario schools has been <a href="https://www.tvo.org/article/how-a-1992-report-on-racism-in-ontario-highlights-current-problems">ongoing for decades</a>. </p>
<p>Twenty years ago, former politician Stephen Lewis was appointed to advise the province of Ontario on race relations. The appointment came after <a href="https://nowtoronto.com/news/yonge-street-riot-documentary/">a “stop anti-Black police violence” march turned into an uprising in Toronto.</a> Lewis spent a month consulting with people and community groups in Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor and London <a href="http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/repository/mon/13000/134250.pdf">and then presented a report on race relations.</a> </p>
<p>He wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The students [I spoke with] were fiercely articulate and often deeply moving…. They don’t understand why the schools are so slow to reflect the broader society. One bright young man in a Metro east high school said that he had reached [the end of high school] without once having a book by a Black author [assigned to him]. And when other students, in the large meeting of which he was a part, started to name books they had been given to read, the titles were <em>Black Like Me</em> and <em>To Kill and Mockingbird</em> (both, incredibly enough, by white writers!). It’s absurd in a world which has a positive cornucopia of magnificent literature by Black authors. I further recall an animated young woman from a high school in Peel, who described her school as multiracial, and then added that she and her fellow students had white teachers, white counsellors, a white principal and were taught Black history by a white teacher who didn’t like them…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More than two decades later, reports continue to show that school boards do not meet the educational needs and interests of Black students and parents.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287101/original/file-20190806-84240-ktdume.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287101/original/file-20190806-84240-ktdume.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287101/original/file-20190806-84240-ktdume.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287101/original/file-20190806-84240-ktdume.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287101/original/file-20190806-84240-ktdume.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287101/original/file-20190806-84240-ktdume.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287101/original/file-20190806-84240-ktdume.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dudley Laws, a founding member of the Black Action Defence Committee, speaks to a ‘stop anti-Black police violence’ rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto in May 1992 after several shooting deaths of Black youth by police.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Canadian Press/Hans Deryk</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two years ago, I <a href="https://exchange.youthrex.com/report/towards-race-equity-education-schooling-black-students-greater-toronto-area">led a study</a> to examine the schooling experiences and educational outcomes of Black students. We surveyed 324 parents, educators, school administrators and trustees. We talked to Black high school and university students in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who participated in the five community consultations we held in four school districts. </p>
<p>Participants echoed what students said 20 years ago in the Lewis report. Black students say they are “being treated differently than their non-Black peers in the classrooms and hallways of their schools.” They say there is still a lack of Black presence in schools. There are few Black teachers, the curriculum does not adequately address Black history and schools lack an equitable process to help students deal with anti-Black racism. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racialized-student-achievement-gaps-are-a-red-alert-108822">Racialized student achievement gaps are a red-alert</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Students spoke about their teachers’ and administrators’ lack of attention to their concerns, interests and needs. <a href="http://edu.yorku.ca/files/2017/04/Towards-Race-Equity-in-Education-April-2017.pdf">They told of differential or “unfair” treatment, and they noted their teachers’ unwillingness to address complaints of racism</a>. </p>
<p>Participants said they perceived a more punitive discipline of Black students. They also said they observed the “streaming of Black students into courses below their ability level.” They said Black students were discouraged from attending university. </p>
<p>Last year, I conducted another study with Black elementary, middle and high-school students in the Peel District School Board (PDSB), a multiracial district in Ontario. This study <a href="http://www.peelschools.org/aboutus/equity/Documents/We%20Rise%20Together%20report%20-%20Carl%20E%20James%20June%202019.pdf">produced the same list of concerns</a>. </p>
<h2>Not belonging</h2>
<p>Students reported being called the “n-word,” as they put it, by “people who are not Black.” This use of racial epithets adds to an already alienating educational climate for many Black students. </p>
<p>One middle school student said: “People are getting too comfortable with saying that n-word.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288358/original/file-20190816-192219-3mrw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288358/original/file-20190816-192219-3mrw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288358/original/file-20190816-192219-3mrw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288358/original/file-20190816-192219-3mrw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288358/original/file-20190816-192219-3mrw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288358/original/file-20190816-192219-3mrw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288358/original/file-20190816-192219-3mrw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The use of the ‘n-word’ seems to be on the rise, even in middle schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A high school student shared his reaction to being called the n-word: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I recall one time where I almost slapped this guy [for using the n-word]; but I was like: ‘Nah! I’m not going to let this happen or let him disturb me like that.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like Black students before them, their experiences contributed to their “sense of un-belonging” and a schooling environment that made learning problematic, tough and challenging. </p>
<p>Beyond Toronto, Black students and their parents are similarly complaining about the use of the n-word across Canadian public schools: Several news reports tell of parents in school boards <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/york-school-board-lawsuit-1.5134169">in York</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/racism-parents-bullying-schools-1.4830056">Ottawa</a>, Montréal and Halifax. </p>
<p>One Montréal mother <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mother-says-elementary-school-won-t-take-action-after-racist-incidents-against-son-1.4271206">told CTV news</a> that in an argument with his classmate, her son was called “the n-word” by a white student. The mother went on to say: “I’m at war with the systemic racism that occurs at the school.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/they-used-it-to-hurt-me-teens-talk-about-being-called-the-n-word"><em>CBC Kids News</em></a> published a story about two Black Grade 12 students in Nova Scotia who gave presentations to their peers across the province about being called the n-word. One of the presenters, Kelvin, said the word is commonly used to “hurt” and put him down.“ He said the word and its implications had not been taught by teachers in any of his classes. </p>
<p>Some parents and educators have connected this ongoing racism to a <a href="https://byblacks.com/main-menu-mobile/news-mobile/item/2295-the-safety-epidemic-facing-black-children-in-ontario-schools">health and safety epidemic for Black students in Ontario schools.</a> </p>
<p>That the "n-word” brings health and safety implications as well as deep consternation to Black students should be a concern that teachers take up. Teachers need to examine course materials for their content and impact on students’ learning. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-impacts-your-health-84112">Racism impacts your health</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Could a good reading list help?</h2>
<p>Based on my research, I recommended the Peel District School Board evaluate their curriculum and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-york-university-professor-asks-peel-school-board-to-reconsider/">assess the usefulness of old texts. Some of these texts repeatedly use the the racial epithet, “ni–er.”</a> As an example, I said the 1960 American novel <em>To Kill A Mockingbird</em> could be re-examined as a core book taught in classrooms. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289493/original/file-20190826-8851-1qk807j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image from the movie, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>These are texts that Canadian students might find difficult to relate to their lives. These texts become especially problematic when it is the only time that the lives of Black people are mentioned in class. </p>
<p>All teaching material must be continuously re-assessed in relation to historical, political and social contexts. Materials must also be evaluated for their ability to pertain to the realities of Black students in today’s classrooms. </p>
<p>The experiences of all students must be centred and the knowledge, needs and aspirations they bring into the classroom considered. </p>
<p>This is the same recommendation Stephen Lewis made in 1992.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289501/original/file-20190826-8851-1278uw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289501/original/file-20190826-8851-1278uw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289501/original/file-20190826-8851-1278uw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289501/original/file-20190826-8851-1278uw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289501/original/file-20190826-8851-1278uw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289501/original/file-20190826-8851-1278uw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289501/original/file-20190826-8851-1278uw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Teaching materials must also be evaluated for their ability to pertain to the realities of Black students in today’s classrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Responsive learning spaces</h2>
<p>As Poleen Grewal, associate director of the Peel District School Board pointed out, it is not just about the texts taught. Teachers who use uncritical texts as a way into discussions about racism are unlikely to benefit Black students already aware of racism. Grewal said teaching must be accompanied by the ability to create “culturally responsive learning spaces.”</p>
<p>Educators need to be aware of how structures of inequities like racism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia and Islamophobia operate in educational institutions to obfuscate student interest in learning. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289487/original/file-20190826-8868-yreatf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289487/original/file-20190826-8868-yreatf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289487/original/file-20190826-8868-yreatf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289487/original/file-20190826-8868-yreatf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289487/original/file-20190826-8868-yreatf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289487/original/file-20190826-8868-yreatf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289487/original/file-20190826-8868-yreatf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nigel Barriffe, president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations and an elementary teacher with the Toronto District School Board in Rexdale, throws up a salute to the chant ‘Black Lives Matter’ at a public meeting of the Ontario Anti-Racism Directorate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Young/Canadian Press)</span></span>
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<p>Recently, a number of school Boards have initiated programs that they claim address anti-Black racism, including anti-racism workshops for teachers. Will these measures help to change the inequitable and racist contexts of Canadian schools and the racism students experience? </p>
<p>Other places have been pro-active with curriculum. In Nova Scotia, <em>To Kill A Mockingbird</em> was removed from the curriculum in 1996, and replaced with the 1998 novel <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/57454/a-lesson-before-dying-by-ernest-j-gaines/9780375702709/teachers-guide/"><em>A Lesson Before Dying</em> by African-American writer Ernest J. Gaines.</a></p>
<p>School boards need to value and draw upon the cultural and intellectual capital of Black students. To do so, they need to encourage the university aspirations of Black students, address racism experienced by students, and use educational materials that enable a relevant and responsive learning environment. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl James receives research funding from Social Science Research Council as well as the Peel District School Board, 2017/2018 for the We Rise Together (on the experiences of Black students).</span></em></p>Decades of inadequate teaching material and resources to support Black students in Ontario means they are severely underserved by their schools.Carl E. James, Professor, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1007632018-08-15T04:18:49Z2018-08-15T04:18:49ZHow the moral lessons of To Kill a Mockingbird endure today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230505/original/file-20180803-41331-17gzzrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gregory Peck and Harper Lee on the set of To Kill a Mockingbird. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056592/mediaviewer/rm2958667776">Universal Pictures/IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/guide-to-the-classics-23522">Guide to the classics</a>, experts explain key works of literature.</em></p>
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<p>Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is one of the classics of American literature. Never out of print, the novel has sold over 40 million copies since it was first published in 1960. It has been a staple of high school syllabuses, including in Australia, for several decades, and is often deemed the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2017/02/21/australian-kill-mockingbird-makes-it-big-screen-indigenous-actor">archetypal race and coming-of-age novel</a>. For many of us, it is a formative read of our youth. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/great-books-nationhood-and-teaching-english-literature-27476">'Great books', nationhood and teaching English literature</a>
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<p>The story is set in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb in 1936 - 40 years after the Supreme Court’s notorious declaration of the races as being <a href="http://time.com/4326692/plessy-ferguson-history-120/">“separate but equal”</a>, and 28 years before the enactment of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act">Civil Rights Act</a>. Our narrator is nine-year-old tomboy, Scout Finch, who relays her observations of her family’s struggle to deal with the class and racial prejudice shown towards the local African American community. </p>
<p>At the centre of the family and the novel stands the highly principled lawyer Atticus Finch. A widower, he teaches Scout, her older brother Jem, and their imaginative friend Dill, how to live and behave honourably. In this he is aided by the family’s hardworking and sensible black housekeeper Calpurnia, and their kind and generous neighbour, Miss Maudie. </p>
<p>It is Miss Maudie, for example, who explains to Scout why it is a sin to kill a mockingbird: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.” </p>
<p>Throughout the novel, the children grow more aware of the community’s attitudes. When the book begins they are preoccupied with catching sight of the mysterious and much feared Boo Radley, who in his youth stabbed his father with a pair of scissors and who has never come out of the family house since. And when Atticus agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman, they too become the target of hatred. </p>
<h2>A morality tale for modern America</h2>
<p>One might expect a book that dispatches moral lessons to be dull reading. But To Kill a Mockingbird is no sermon. The lessons are presented in a seemingly effortless style, all the while tackling the complexity of race issues with startling clarity and a strong sense of reality. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/william-faulkner-diagnosed-modern-ills-in-as-i-lay-dying-94974">William Faulkner diagnosed modern ills in As I Lay Dying</a>
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<p>As the Finches return from Robinson’s trial, Miss Maudie says: “as I waited I thought, Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that.”</p>
<p>Despite the tragedy of Robinson’s conviction, Atticus succeeds in making the townspeople consider and struggle with their prejudice.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HOocTXKPVVU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Atticus Finch delivers his closing statement in the trial of Tom Robinson in the 1962 film.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The effortlessness of the writing owes much to the way the story is told. The narrator is a grown Scout, looking back on her childhood. When she begins her story, she seems more interested in telling us about the people and incidents that occupied her six-year-old imagination. Only slowly does she come to the events that changed everything for her and Jem, which were set in motion long before their time. Even then, she tells these events in a way that shows she too young to always grasp their significance. </p>
<p>The lessons Lee sets out are encapsulated in episodes that are as funny as they are serious, much like Aesop’s Fables. A case in point is when the children return home from the school concert with Scout still dressed in her outlandish ham costume. In the dark they are chased and attacked by Bob Ewell the father of the woman whom Robinson allegedly raped. Ewell, armed with a knife, attempts to stab Scout, but the shapeless wire cage of the ham causes her to loose balance and the knife to go astray. In the struggle that ensues someone pulls Ewell off the teetering body of Scout and he falls on the knife. It was Boo Radley who saved her. </p>
<p>Another lesson about what it means to be truly brave is delivered in an enthralling episode where a local farmer’s dog suddenly becomes rabid and threatens to infect all the townsfolk with his deadly drool. </p>
<p>Scout and Jem are surprised when their bespectacled, bookish father turns out to have a “God-given talent” with a rifle; it is he who fires the single shot that will render the townsfolk safe. The children rejoice at what they consider an impressive display of courage. However, he tells them that what he did was not truly brave. The better example of courage, he tells them, is Mrs Dubose (the “mean” old lady who lived down the road), who managed to cure herself of a morphine addiction even as she was dying a horribly painful death from cancer. </p>
<p>He also teaches them the importance of behaving in a civilised manner, even when subjected to insults. Most of all Atticus teaches the children the importance of listening to one’s conscience even when everyone else holds a contrary view: “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule”, he says, “is a person’s conscience.” </p>
<p>The continuing value in Atticus’ belief in the importance of principled thinking in the world of <a href="https://www.economist.com/prospero/2016/02/22/how-to-kill-a-mockingbird-shaped-race-relations-in-america">Black Lives Matter</a> and the Australian government’s rhetoric of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2018/jan/18/the-african-gang-crisis-has-been-brewing-in-australias-media-for-years">“African gangs”</a>, is clear. </p>
<p>Atticus’ spiel on “conscience” and the other ethical principles he insists on living by, are key to the enduring influence of the novel. It conjures an ideal of moral standards and human behaviour that many people still aspire to today, even though the novel’s events and the characters belong to the past.</p>
<p>Lee herself was not one to shy away from principled displays: writing to a school that banned her novel, she summed up the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/harper-lee-letter-to-a-school-board-trying-to-ban-mockingbird-2016-2?IR=T">source of the morality</a> her book expounds. The novel, she said, “spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct”. </p>
<h2>Fame and obscurity</h2>
<p>When first published the novel received <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-harper-lee-to-kill-a-mockingbird-1960-review-20160219-story.html">rave reviews</a>. A year later it won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, followed by a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/04/19/to-kill-a-mockingbird-film-review/">movie version</a> in 1962 starring <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vouoju4mETc">Gregory Peck</a>. Indeed, the novel was such a success that Lee, unable to cope with all the attention and publicity, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/go-set-a-watchman/why-harper-lee-kept-her-silence-for-55-years/">retired into obscurity</a>. </p>
<p>Interviewed late in life, Lee cited two reasons for her continued silence: “I wouldn’t go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say, and I will not say it again.” </p>
<p>The latter statement is doubtless a reference to the autobiographical nature of her book. Lee passed her <a href="http://time.com/4234210/harper-lee-childhood/">childhood</a> in the rural town of Monroeville in the deep south, where her attorney father defended two black men accused of killing a shopkeeper. The accused were convicted and hanged. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly influenced by these formative events, the biographical fiction Lee drew out of her family history became yet more complex upon the publication of her only other novel, Go Set a Watchman, in 2016. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/jun/05/go-set-a-watchman-by-harper-lee-review">Critics panned it</a> it for lacking the light touch and humour of the first novel. They also decried the fact that the character of Atticus Finch was this time around a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/review-harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-gives-atticus-finch-a-dark-side.html">racist bigot</a>, a feature that had the potential to taint the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/19/go-set-a-watchman-harper-lee-legacy-to-kill-a-mockingbird">author’s legacy</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/review-has-go-set-a-watchman-helped-topple-the-notion-of-the-white-saviour-44951">Review/ Has Go Set a Watchman helped topple the notion of the white saviour?</a>
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<p>Subsequent biographical research revealed that Go Set A Watchman, was not a sequel, but the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. Following initial rejection by the publisher Lippincot, Lee reworked it into the superior novel many of us know and still love today. </p>
<p>Lee gave us the portrait of one small town in the south during the depression years. But it was so filled with lively detail, and unforgettable characters with unforgettable names like Atticus, Scout, Calpurnia and Boo Radley that a universal story emerged, and with it the novel’s continuing popularity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Maxwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To Kill a Mockingbird is no sermon. Its lessons are presented in effortless style, tackling the complexity of race issues with startling clarity and a strong sense of reality.Anne Maxwell, Assoc. Professor, School of Culture and Communication, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/793272017-06-26T00:42:18Z2017-06-26T00:42:18ZWhat do protests about Harry Potter books teach us?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175451/original/file-20170623-7817-1mo0y8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What justifies keeping some books out of the hands of young readers?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sodaniechea/7030122713/in/photolist-bHedyi-9jwNVf-6J1PQE-a3Gy6H-bJU8r6-2k74u6-2CQyUq-3pyk6-2kmYyd-2sDJy4-f48xaf-e8KMie-vJgXB-2uJ5VG-2jd2jD-3tmJv-8wCfpL-3mKGT-qcwsC-nKUCxx-3HEPf-6VggKY-pSbQVT-a3KpBb-2qPa85-6osCEk-nLfNWo-9hzwzV-h2Ke8D-3qdroz-4ynCHp-6Vggzo-2jnayM-e4y4Fw-6Qxan3-2sJ7xf-a3GxTr-3jAQ6-3jcgz-4Qb8dX-68beE-4ms91u-w51f17-ifXqaC-7Xukw2-6akyug-Ccudgi-7xgYX8-ipa6hz-hZ7qHj">Sodanie Chea</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Monday, June 26, 2017, Harry James Potter – the world’s most famous wizard – will celebrate his 20th birthday. His many fans will likely mark the occasion by rereading a favorite Harry Potter novel or rewatching one of the blockbuster films. Some may even raise a butterbeer toast in Harry’s honor at one of three Harry Potter-themed amusement parks. </p>
<p>But not everyone will be celebrating Harry’s big day. In fact, a vocal group of Christians – <a href="http://web.b.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=15431223&AN=33294729&h=7TLyJG5R2oXdCzI4R86xYgsL%2fhpu3pGRmnZPwlmswh62VOBros1hjyiUm2U2yx8Gx3tsXa3setpoptjkquAYbA%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d15431223%26AN%3d33294729">usually identified as “Bible-believing” or fundamentalist Christians</a> – has been resistant to Harry’s charms from the start. Members of this community, who believe the Bible to be literal truth, <a href="http://www.ala.org/bbooks/top-100-bannedchallenged-books-2000-2009">campaigned vigorously</a> to keep J.K. Rowling’s <a href="https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/ten-years-later-harry-potter-vanishes-from-the-best-seller-list/">best-selling novels</a> out of classrooms and libraries. They even staged public <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93727&page=1">book burnings</a> across the country, at which children and parents were invited to <a href="http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2002/02/ljarchives/harry-potter-book-burning-draws-fire/">cast Rowling’s books</a> into the flames. These fiery spectacles garnered widespread media coverage, sparking reactions ranging from <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1735623.stm">bemusement</a> to <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007945">outrage</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175446/original/file-20170623-12620-1rmxxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175446/original/file-20170623-12620-1rmxxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175446/original/file-20170623-12620-1rmxxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175446/original/file-20170623-12620-1rmxxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175446/original/file-20170623-12620-1rmxxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175446/original/file-20170623-12620-1rmxxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175446/original/file-20170623-12620-1rmxxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Harry Potter turns 20 on June 26.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vespere/6157720256/in/photolist-ao8VGC-h1vZis-h1wZox-h1wdmE-h1xaFg-bWT5cF-dssdja-h1w3tf-9whdUT-h1wUU2-mVLqrV-h1vSuh-5QGaM-hTRMK1-h1x9vk-3BfEjk-h1wknd-2xhMRy-bWSSSi-ceetps-Q9sH8w-RfgXFe-arYudK-Rfh2JV-8oUtCB-RfgaVg-3mkJD-hTRMJj-2NUYKW-6W7N7w-2jRhaH-8jLo3v-3ev1-hZT7N3-3oZXUF-5o7wPS-8jPwM1-bWS5kZ-c9N5hC-93paE2-bWTiyi-nw3Dj9-2vTNb8-jsSAku-dXsAtx-dXyohG-jsN5uz-jsLrTZ-dXsCji-dXymnj">Lesley Choa</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>What could justify the use of such drastic measures to keep these books out of the hands of young readers?</p>
<h2>The different views on Harry Potter</h2>
<p>Book burnings may be relatively rare in modern America, but efforts to protect young readers from “dangerous” texts are not. Such texts, and the efforts to limit their readership, are the subject of <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/1/docs/honors/Thematic_Approaches_Minor/200_Tucker.pdf">a class I teach</a> at the University of Southern California. </p>
<p>In this class, students survey a collection of books that have been challenged on moral, political and religious grounds. These include classics such as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/1984.html?id=kotPYEqx7kMC">“1984”</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird_LP.html?id=78VrOOWSQ6UC">“To Kill a Mockingbird,”</a> as well as newer texts like <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Persepolis.html?id=xBUM1h2BImQC">“Persepolis”</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Perks_of_Being_a_Wallflower.html?id=xFNG764pnOgC">“The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”</a> The point is not to determine which challenges are “good” and which are “bad.” Instead, we seek to understand how differing beliefs about reading and subjectivity make certain texts seem dangerous and others seem safe to particular populations of readers. </p>
<p>Harry Potter is one of the first books we discuss. </p>
<p>Most readers of Rowling’s novel – including <a href="http://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/booknotes/a_handful_of_books_about_harry/">many Christian readers</a> – interpret the characters’ tutelage in spells and potions as harmless fantasy, or as metaphors for the development of wisdom and knowledge. Similarly, they read incidents in which Harry and his friends disobey adults or make questionable choices as opportunities for characters and readers alike to learn important lessons and begin to develop their own moral and ethical codes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175447/original/file-20170623-12648-17d0prn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175447/original/file-20170623-12648-17d0prn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175447/original/file-20170623-12648-17d0prn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175447/original/file-20170623-12648-17d0prn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175447/original/file-20170623-12648-17d0prn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175447/original/file-20170623-12648-17d0prn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175447/original/file-20170623-12648-17d0prn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What makes some literary texts appear ‘dangerous?’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kayepants/8373694641/in/photolist-dKXnFx-aCLMzh-dQfGmk-oKyXYu-ppVZre-pGuNah-ppVYue-ppYtaA-pq26Zq-pq26eY-pGaf7r-oKyWYo-pGtifL-ppYtZG-pGbKDF-9WcwDm-b5uuJa-eaDoQH-MzeHeA-3uc5j-3uc5g-499Ewi-3uc5i-49dFyb-62KuuM-49dGnL-49dHeL-2jRhaH-8VHvQ3-4tKEbt-3DZYz-vdpqt-2jFApQ-9WHoNe-iXkt52-vdpqc-5QGaM-nBqpmP-KRLjDu-3uc5e-3uc5f-4aooZU-3b78as-vdpr8-mVLqrV-9WHoxT-6j1zX-9WLggQ-3BPB7n-8VPzbc">kayepants</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For some fundamentalist Christians, however, Harry’s magical exploits pose an active danger. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Harry_Potter_and_the_Bible.html?id=3PGBUrScs-YC">According to them</a>, Hogwarts teaches the kinds of witchcraft explicitly condemned as punishable by death and damnation in the biblical books of <a href="https://www.esv.org/Deuteronomy+18/">Deuteronomy</a> and <a href="https://www.esv.org/Exodus+22/">Exodus</a>. They believe the books must be banned – even burned – because their positive portrayal of magic is likely to attract unsuspecting children to <a href="https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5012/5012_01.asp">real-world witchcraft</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, they think that when Harry disobeys his cruel Muggle guardians or flouts Dumbledore’s rules to save his friends, he actively encourages child readers to engage in lying and disobedience, which are explicitly forbidden by the Bible. As Evangelical writer Richard Abanes <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Harry_Potter_and_the_Bible.html?id=3PGBUrScs-YC">puts it</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The morals and ethics in Rowling’s fantasy tales are at best unclear, and at worst, patently unbiblical.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Making assumptions</h2>
<p>Why don’t Bible-believing Christians trust young readers to discern the difference between fantasy and reality? And why don’t they think children can learn positive lessons from Harry’s adventures – like the importance of standing up to injustice?</p>
<p>According to scholar <a href="https://ischool.illinois.edu/people/faculty/cajenkin">Christine Jenkins</a>, people who try to censor texts often hold a set of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41962271">false assumptions</a> about how reading works. </p>
<p>One of those assumptions is that particular literary content (like positive portrayals of witchcraft) will invariably produce particular effects (more witches in real life). Another is that reactions to a particular text are likely to be consistent across readers. In other words, if one reader finds a passage scary, funny or offensive, the assumption is that other readers invariably will do so as well.</p>
<p>As Jenkins points out, however, research has shown that readers’ responses are highly variable and contextual. In fact, psychologists <a href="https://internet2.trincoll.edu/FacProfiles/Default.aspx?fid=1480325">Amie Senland</a> and <a href="http://www.usj.edu/academics/great-faculty/elizabeth-vozzola-phd/">Elizabeth Vozzola</a> <a href="http://search.proquest.com/openview/d696d22473a15c7b976e204ecdcfbd6b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=27598">have demonstrated</a> this about readers of Harry Potter. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175449/original/file-20170623-12644-me5gjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175449/original/file-20170623-12644-me5gjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175449/original/file-20170623-12644-me5gjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175449/original/file-20170623-12644-me5gjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175449/original/file-20170623-12644-me5gjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175449/original/file-20170623-12644-me5gjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175449/original/file-20170623-12644-me5gjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Readers’ responses can vary widely.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/62833283@N00/32290080463/in/photolist-Rcn6Xe-8wvbmA-2kYfwJ-3bjf9v-SeuffW-8T8vdp-Si9vfR-cd5WPq-69596-QJwSV2-aNLxK-opzRe-QhStpy-UBG953-2k4j5t-3kD9u-327Kmk-a5JTFe-6Mv6Xj-3niNp-ioq9ck-8YJdUo-2jvBnp-2k9JnP-3kD9v-2xecL2-6PWHxm-3khKy-a3Gy7R-9V8Vzn-2tKvS1-eSWgMt-R2tMt5-pgKK1R-9G6Gve-3Gs9Fi-9fcpZM-64qbTH-2kp4Ua-Seug6y-2jsgsb-ThKCrH-F8uHQ-UKDruy-9gtXsm-2bWcXW-3khJk-3khKz-2myr8N-2x7QcR">Seamus McCauley</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In their study comparing the perceptions of fundamentalist and liberal Christian readers of Harry Potter, Senland and Vozzola reveal that different reading responses are possible in even relatively homogeneous groups. On the one hand, despite adults’ fears to the contrary, few children in either group believed that the magic practiced in Harry Potter could be replicated in real life. On the other, the children disagreed about a number of things, including whether or not Dumbledore’s bending of the rules for Harry made Dumbledore harder to respect. </p>
<p>Senland and Vozzola’s study joins a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zS0vCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA454&lpg=PA454&dq=Lancaster,+J.+W.+(1971).+An+investigation+of+the+effect+of+books+with+black+characters+on+the+racial+preferences+of+white+children&source=bl&ots=FKjLBCCEpK&sig=nFtXMdzvK_xt_qy4VYVT2xmu3gc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr5byj6dfUAhUCMGMKHc68DLkQ6AEIKzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">body</a> of <a href="https://www3.nd.edu/%7Ednarvaez/documents/NarvaezJME01.pdf">scholarship</a> that indicates that children perform complex negotiations as they read. Children’s reading experiences are informed by both their unique personal histories and their cultural contexts. </p>
<p>In other words, there’s no “normal” way to read Harry Potter – or any other book, for that matter. </p>
<h2>Distrusting child readers</h2>
<p>Fundamentalist Christians aren’t the only group who have trouble trusting the capabilities of child readers.</p>
<p>Take the case of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” </p>
<p>For decades, <a href="http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics/reasons">parents have argued</a> that Harper Lee’s novel poses a danger to young readers, and have sought to remove it from classrooms for this reason. Some parents worry that the novel’s vulgar language and sexual content will corrupt children’s morals, while others fear that the novel’s marginalization of black characters will damage the self-image of black readers.</p>
<p>Despite their different ideological orientations, I believe that both of these groups of protesters – like the fundamentalists who attempt to censor Harry Potter – are driven by surprisingly similar misapprehensions about reading. </p>
<p>In all of these cases, the protesters presume that being exposed to a phenomenon in literature (whether witchcraft, foul language or racism) naturally leads to a reproduction of that phenomenon in life. They also believe that their individual experience of a text is correct and applicable to disparate readers.</p>
<p>These cases of attempted censorship show a profound distrust of child readers and their imaginations. And they ignore evidence that child readers are far more sophisticated than adults tend to credit them for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Trisha Tucker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Harry Potter turns 20, a scholar says protesters who try to censor books do not trust young readers to discern the difference between fantasy and reality. But why?Trisha Tucker, Assistant Professor of Writing, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/449512015-07-21T20:16:35Z2015-07-21T20:16:35ZReview/ Has Go Set a Watchman helped topple the notion of the white saviour?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89097/original/image-20150721-12527-skreg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Atticus is not who we thought he was – but maybe who we thought he was was wrong.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Walsh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week on Facebook, a friend declared she will now abandon plans to name any future son of hers Atticus. She is not alone among fans of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), including <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/07/his-name-was-atticus/398600/">thousands of parents</a> of young Attici who are dismayed that the legacy of a heroic character who – so it goes – stood against the tide of racism in 1930s Alabama, is now revealed as a bigot in <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062409850/go-set-a-watchman">Go Set a Watchman</a>, published last week, 55 years after its predecessor.</p>
<p>In newspaper reports, the draft that Lee <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-third-book-harper-lee-may-indeed-have-another-ace-up-her-sleeve-44703">allegedly wrote prior</a> to her classic novel is described as potentially horrifying in its revision of a “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157064/New-Harper-Lee-novel-presents-unsaintly-Atticus-Finch.html">literary saint</a>”.</p>
<p>Go Set a Watchman’s Atticus Finch, now aged 72, keeps a lurid pamphlet – The Black Plague – among his reading material and once attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting. He welcomes racist, pro-segregation speakers at the Maycomb County Citizens’ Council meetings. In heated conversations with his daughter Jean Louise (the adult Scout, who was the child narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird), he warns about a future in which there might be “negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters” and in which full civil rights might see white southerners politically “outnumbered”.</p>
<p>The anxiety about how this depiction of Atticus Finch might taint his saintly status, which was especially fostered by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056592/">his filmic portrayal</a> by Gregory Peck in 1962, is summed up by a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/daily-cartoon-monday-july-13th">New Yorker cartoon</a> published last week. It shows a metallic Terminator lined up outside a book store with the caption:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve been sent from the future to stop Harper Lee from complicating the legacy of a beloved fictional character.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Michigan bookseller Brilliant Books is offering “refunds and apologies” to customers who have bought Go Set a Watchman. The store has even published an <a href="http://www.brilliant-books.net/go-set-watchman-opinion-piece">opinion piece</a> discouraging readers who are looking for a “nice summer novel” from purchasing it, and suggest the book is best suited for “academic insight”.</p>
<p>Though the novel has received a number of <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/betrayed-harper-lee-wrote-the-great-american-novel-she-doesn-t-deserve-this-1.2288605">scathing reviews</a>, it still has the potential to not only allow readers to encounter other facets of Jean Louise as an adult through her narration, but to be forced to rationalise a story in which there is no reassuring resolution to racial inequality. </p>
<p>In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch explains that “Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people”. In Go Set a Watchman, Atticus loses his distinctive identity to become a member of the mob.</p>
<p>We might be shocked by an Atticus Finch who supports racial segregation, but the flawed Atticus might not be as fraught as his initial infallible depiction, or at least Scout’s – and most readers’– belief in it. The heroism of Atticus might never have issued from his being an exceptional man immune to the racism that permeated the American south.</p>
<p>To Kill a Mockingbird has always been a problematic novel with respect to race. While several generations have read Lee’s novel in high school as a way to discuss the history of racial prejudice, it does not mean that the story was not also influenced by the racist culture into which it was written.</p>
<p>This is not to charge Lee with racism, but to note that many people, including African-American author <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2015/07/10/harperlee/bISayt9ciWvagFkRR1KiLJ/story.html">Toni Morrison</a> consider Mockingbird to be a “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/01/-em-12-years-a-slave-em-yet-another-oscar-nominated-white-savior-story/283142/">white saviour narrative</a>”. Such stories might be well-intentioned, but as Morrison pointed out, they sideline people of colour from playing any role in fighting for equal rights or defending themselves. </p>
<p>To Kill a Mockingbird presents racism from a white perspective and, <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122295/these-scholars-have-been-pointing-out-atticus-finchs-racism-years">like Atticus’s courtroom defence</a>, gives little voice to and insight from its tragic victim, Tom Robinson.</p>
<p>Moreover, Atticus Finch never defends Tom because of his interest in civil rights or countering racial discrimination. He was assigned the case, rather than making a choice to represent Tom. He is largely motivated by the principle of equality and fairness before the law, noting that a man of “any color of the rainbow […] ought to get a square deal in the courtroom”.</p>
<p>In Go Set a Watchman, the focalising view of Scout Finch, a six-year-old child, is replaced by the adult perspective of Jean Louise, which necessarily brings with it a more sophisticated understanding of events and the potential for inner contradictions. After she has her illusions of her father shattered, Jean Louise is surprised to see that he still looks the same; she doesn’t know why “she expected him to be looking like Dorian Gray or somebody”.</p>
<p>Lee is thought to have based the character of Atticus upon <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/harper-lees-father-the-inspiration-for-atticus-finch-changed-his-segregation-views-1436670661">her own lawyer father</a>. Amasa Coleman Lee had comparatively liberal views on race. He defended two black men accused of murder, and had a verbal confrontation with members of the Ku Klux Klan. Yet he was also a segregationist and resisted integrated schools.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89098/original/image-20150721-12543-14g5ref.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Perivolaris</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Atticus Finch produced by the combined picture of To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman is a similar figure in his progressiveness, in some respects, and susceptibility to inherited views about racial hierarchy. Lee’s father and Atticus are also not unusual in being highly respected men, with a reputation for compassion, who also subscribed to racist ideology.</p>
<p>In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells Scout’s brother Jem that there was once a Klan in Maycomb in 1920, but that it was “a political organization more than anything” and that they “couldn’t find anybody to scare”. </p>
<p>In Go Set a Watchman, Atticus Finch has attended one KKK meeting, ostensibly to discover the men behind the masks. As Jean Louise’s suitor, Henry, explains, the organisation was once “respectable, like the Masons” and the Wizard of the chapter was actually the Methodist preacher.</p>
<p>Atticus Finch’s disturbing views on race accord with the worldviews that enabled the founding of the United States and other British colonies. One of the most quoted examples so far of Atticus’ racist turn is his claim that “The negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people”. Derivatives of <a href="http://www.icr.org/article/heritage-recapitulation-theory/">recapitulation theory</a> held that civilisations passed through stages of development much as a child develops into an adult.</p>
<p>In his 1904 book <a href="https://archive.org/details/adolescenceitsp01hallgoog">Adolescence</a>, American psychologist G Stanley Hall ranked races on an evolutionary chain. He placed Christians of the Western World at the adult pinnacle and regarded the “primitive” races as “adolescent”, among which he included Hawaiians, South and North American Indians, the Irish and Africans. </p>
<p>Hierarchical ideas about race, and the infantilisation of non-white races, underpinned the founding of white settler colonies and justified genocide and slavery.</p>
<p>Racial prejudice was embedded in every element of the world in which Atticus Finch would have been raised. Go Set a Watchman notes that the picnic grounds at the historical Finch family property, the Landing, was used for “negroes [who] played basketball there” and that “the Klan met there in its halcyon days”.</p>
<p>The dilemma that Go Set a Watchman confronts us with is that a “good”, educated man, committed to upholding the right for all people to be equal before the law could also hold racist views that are almost universally understood as abhorrent today. And he is not alone. The men Atticus Finch sits alongside while listening to racist speakers are “[m]en of substance and character, responsible men, good men”.</p>
<p>Historically, we know that the hagiographic account of Atticus Finch, narrated by Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, describes a man who is very unlikely to have been produced by the society in which he lived. Yet as a character he was eminently reassuring.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89096/original/image-20150721-12536-t82fge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MarioMancuso</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The nature of Atticus Finch also relates to the questions being raised about <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/07/13/422545987/harper-lees-watchman-is-a-mess-that-makes-us-reconsider-a-masterpiece">the provenance</a> of Go Set a Watchman. There has been enormous speculation about when the novel was actually written. The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/03/harper-lee-new-novel-to-kill-a-mockingbird">official account</a> from publisher HarperCollins holds that the work is Lee’s long-lost first manuscript of what was to become To Kill a Mockingbird.</p>
<p>It is accepted that editor <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/books/the-invisible-hand-behind-harper-lees-to-kill-a-mockingbird.html?_r=1">Tay Hohoff</a> read Lee’s initial manuscript and worked with her to recast the original story to focus on Scout’s life as a child. Go Set a Watchman itself, however, does not read like it was written prior to To Kill a Mockingbird.</p>
<p>In Go Set a Watchman, the central plot point of Atticus Finch’s defence of a black man against false rape charges occupies only three paragraphs. As Jean Louise observes the racist discussion of the Citizens’ Council in the county courtroom, she fleetingly remembers Atticus’ defence of an innocent black boy, who is successfully acquitted. His past statement “equal rights for all, special privileges for none” springs into her mind to interrupt the hateful chorus of voices: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>kinky woolly heads…still in the trees….greasy smelly…marry your daughters…mongrelize the race…mongrelize…mongrelize….save the South". </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While it is certainly possible that Hohoff recognised the potential that Lee’s three paragraphs held as the lynchpin for a publishable novel, Go Set a Watchman seems to rely on a reader who is already familiar with Atticus Finch. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/sweet-home-alabama">Adam Gopnik wrote recently</a> for the New Yorker, “it’s difficult to credit that a first novel would so blithely assume so much familiarity with a cast of characters never before encountered.”</p>
<p>In particular, a reader who was not aware of To Kill a Mockingbird would be hard-pressed to share “color blind” Jean Louise’s heightened reaction to her father’s complicity with the overarching current of racism in the south in the face of organised movements for racial equality, such as the <a href="http://www.naacp.org/">NAACP</a>. </p>
<p>Go Set a Watchman has little plot movement and turns on Jean Louise’s realisation on one of her annual visits from New York that her father – and other respectable men in her hometown – have changed as race relations have deteriorated.</p>
<p>Atticus Finch’s brother, Dr Jack Finch, eventually tells Jean Louise that she confused her father “with God”, never seeing him “as a man with a man’s heart, and a man’s failings”. Her struggle to accept a multi-dimensional, flawed Atticus is now mirrored in the cultural and critical reaction to the less palatable aspects of his character. </p>
<p>Readers are struggling to integrate Atticus Finch’s heroism in his spirited defence of a black man with his support of segregation and belief in the “backwardness” of African Americans.</p>
<p>Can Atticus’ beloved status endure after a novel that acknowledges that racism is often cloaked by respectability, or has Go Set a Watchman helped to topple the notion of the white saviour? </p>
<p>We’ll have to check on the popularity of “Atticus”, which has <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/atticus-tops-baby-names-2015-124073377716.html">shot to the top</a> of baby name lists in 2015, in a few year’s time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Smith has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Atticus Finch, we learn in Go Set a Watchman, once attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting, and welcomes pro-segregation speakers at local council meetings. But is he really so different to the man we know from To Kill a Mockingbird?Michelle Smith, Research fellow in English Literature, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/448112015-07-17T21:49:45Z2015-07-17T21:49:45ZIn Go Set a Watchman, the legal debate that racked America’s conscience<p>The brave, solitary figure standing up for justice against all odds has a claim on the heart. Meanwhile, the conservative traditionalist using legal arguments to cling to the past is justly forgotten. </p>
<p>That likely explains <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/07/13/422545987/harper-lees-watchman-is-a-mess-that-makes-us-reconsider-a-masterpiece">why a number of reviewers</a> have treated Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/sweet-home-alabama">like a dead rodent to be held at arm’s length while taken to the trash</a>.</p>
<p>For unlike Mockingbird’s Atticus – a lone hero who represented a disabled black man falsely accused of assaulting a white woman – the Atticus in Go Set a Watchman opposes Brown v Board of Education, which overturned segregation. He supports the <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/134814">White Citizens Council</a>, argues that African Americans haven’t earned their citizenship and worries what will happen if voter suppression efforts aren’t successful.</p>
<p>Yet this shouldn’t be a reason to disparage the novel; if anything, it presents a very real tension that many Americans were grappling with in the 1950s: how should they interpret the Constitution? And should the rule of law take precedent over justice being served?</p>
<p>In this sense, Atticus represents the past: strict adherence to the law, above all else. Meanwhile, his daughter Jean Louise (the adult Scout) represents a new strain of legal interpretation that’s devoted to justice for all.</p>
<p>Set in the fictional Maycomb, Alabama in the late 1950s amidst the push for integration and voting rights, the novel centers on a deep disagreement between Jean Louise Finch and her father, Atticus, over these civil rights issues.</p>
<p>In Jim Crow Alabama – where the law denies African Americans voting rights, limits their jury service and segregates them in school – this is what complicates the character of Atticus, who supports a Jim Crow society and thinks that the Constitution does, too. And it may explain the shift in Atticus’ character, from a lawyer defending a wrongly accused black man in Mockingbird, to a supporter of the White Citizens Council.</p>
<p>In Watchman, when African-American lawyers from the NAACP work in a neighboring county to challenge the exclusion of African Americans from serving on a jury, Atticus fears they may show up in Maycomb, too. </p>
<p>Here, the novel rings true to history. Stretching back to the 1930s, Alabamans had a deeply held fear of outside lawyers. One response was to run them out of town. Another was to lynch their clients. For example, in 1933, after two African-American men were shot to death in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the NAACP asked the US Department of Justice to prosecute local officials who were complicit with the lynchers. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/jurisprudence/karl-llewellyn-and-realist-movement-2nd-edition?format=PB">Karl Llewellyn</a> was a Columbia law professor and leader of the “legal realist” movement, which sought to understand what was actually happening between laws, enforcement of laws and the delivery of justice. In 1933, he argued on behalf of the NAACP that the intimidation of lawyers and their clients in Alabama – with the tacit approval of those in power – was hindering the proper enforcement of the law. Lynchings, Llewellyn said, were designed to intimidate the entire African-American community and to stop them from asserting their rights. </p>
<p>In Watchman, the efforts to stop African Americans from asserting their rights are somewhat more subtle. Atticus offers to represent a young African-American man accused of running over a drunk white man, but only so NAACP lawyers will not take on the case themselves – and then start asking questions about African-American jury service.</p>
<p>Alabama lawyers like Atticus still read the Constitution through the lens of white superiority. Jean Louise, recalling Atticus’ defense of Tom Robinson in the 1930s, tells him his ideas of justice “have nothing to do with people.” She calls his ideas “abstract justice written down item by item on a brief, nothing to do with that black boy.”</p>
<p>That’s just how many judges before the civil rights movement viewed constitutional law. For example, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes defended forced sterilization along similar terms when he <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200">dismissed the equal protection claim</a> of a young woman about to be sterilized.</p>
<p>Jean Louise’s uncle tells her that Atticus will “always do it by the letter and by the spirit of the law.” Atticus’ version of the law was informed by the “separate but equal” doctrine, which had been the rule – up until Brown.</p>
<p>But it’s a vision of the law rooted in the past. On the one hand, Atticus won’t defend lynching, which was against the law (even if officials sometimes failed to enforce it). On the other, his narrow conception of the Constitution doesn’t extend to equal rights in schools, the voting booth or at the altar. </p>
<p>It isn’t just on race that Atticus is out of step with the times. He opposes social security, too. And he worries that even the “time-honored, common-law concept of property…has become almost extinct.”</p>
<p>Even Jean Louise is skeptical of Brown v Board of Education. She tells her father she thinks it’s inconsistent with the Tenth Amendment (which deals with states’ rights). This is an <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IBvIFG6q4AkC&pg=PA17&dq=tenth+amendment+states+rights+segregation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI4b3G2PzgxgIVjI4NCh0dfQCc#v=onepage&q=tenth%20amendment%20states%20rights%20segregation&f=false">argument</a> that was popular with states’ rights advocates and segregationists in the 1950s. </p>
<p>However, she also realizes that the Supreme Court has no choice – they “had to do it.”</p>
<p>“Atticus,” she says, “the time has come when we’ve got to do right.” She is, like the famous Karl Llewellyn, a legal realist when it comes to constitutional interpretation: she realizes that strict interpretation isn’t compatible with social realities.</p>
<p>There was a sense for Jean Louise, as for so many Americans of that era, that constitutional arguments about states’ rights were subordinate to grander principles of justice. The equal protection clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment was a principle that supported civil rights; but those who opposed civil rights found only principles of limited construction and state sovereignty. Jean Louise referred to the equal protection principle when she told Atticus she believed in the slogan “Equal rights for all; special privileges for none.”</p>
<p>In the 1950s, the world was changing. So was the meaning of law. The character of Jean Louise reflects the thinking of many Americans during the civil rights movement: that the Constitution was designed for equality, for voting rights and for better schools. Much has been written about how Watchman demotes Atticus from hero status. But the novel also demonstrates the idea that the Constitution stood for principles of equality.</p>
<p>The train that brought Jean Louise back to Maycomb also brought new ideas that would become central to the civil rights movement. In that respect, Watchman is more inspirational than Mockingbird, for it supports the view that the Constitution is forward-looking, and that our nation – not just some heroic lawyer – is doing something about civil rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alfred L. Brophy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The novel’s two main characters represent the constitutional conundrum that many Americans grappled with in the pre-civil rights era.Alfred L. Brophy, Judge John J Parker Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/445412015-07-15T11:51:35Z2015-07-15T11:51:35ZReview: why Go Set a Watchman is the novel we deserve<p><em>Warning: this article contains spoilers.</em></p>
<p>It has been a long time since a new novel has attracted as much clamorous attention as Harper Lee’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/books/review/harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman.html?_r=0">Go Set a Watchman</a>. The back story is familiar enough by now: it is 55 years since Lee published <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/17/review-to-kill-a-mockingbird-harper-lee">To Kill A Mockingbird</a> – a book that has managed to sustain that rare alchemy of huge popularity and genuine critical respect. A follow-up was always rumoured, but apparently abandoned by Lee. The years passed. </p>
<p>Then, mysteriously, <a href="http://jezebel.com/be-suspicious-of-the-new-harper-lee-novel-1683488258">suspiciously</a>, the dreamt-of sequel came to light: a manuscript “discovered” in a vault by a lawyer and – we are <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2015/02/05/harper-lee-is-happy-as-hell-about-new-book-publisher-says/22924865/">insistently told</a> – published with the knowing consent of its ailing 89-year-old author. The murky circumstances of Go Set a Watchman’s publication have been the subject of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-suspicious-should-we-be-about-the-new-harper-lee-novel-37182">much speculation</a>. But here we have it nonetheless – a late and unlikely sibling for one of American literature’s most beloved of only children. </p>
<h2>Yearning for youth</h2>
<p>The plot itself is a variation on a classic. The prodigal daughter, having fled for a life in the progressive big city, returns to the nostalgia-tinted backwater of her youth. Where once she was a native, her urban worldliness now jars against hometown conventions. </p>
<p>The tom-boy Scout Finch we know from To Kill a Mockingbird is now a conscientious and independent woman: Jean Louise. Her brother Jem is dead, while her father, the hero-lawyer Atticus, is suddenly an arthritic bigot. Contemporary Maycomb – parochial and boiling in the summer sun – is intercut with flashbacks to Scout’s childhood. You can feel Lee’s yearning to get back to that time – which she would, of course, when she came to rewrite it all. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88488/original/image-20150715-17774-vgzz0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88488/original/image-20150715-17774-vgzz0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88488/original/image-20150715-17774-vgzz0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88488/original/image-20150715-17774-vgzz0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88488/original/image-20150715-17774-vgzz0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88488/original/image-20150715-17774-vgzz0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88488/original/image-20150715-17774-vgzz0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Atticus we know and love.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-margie/1547204362/sizes/o/">twm1340/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Composed before To Kill a Mockingbird, but set many years afterwards, some of Go Set a Watchman’s character trajectories and plot points don’t quite match up. After all, this isn’t a sequel as such, but another novel altogether. Knowing this makes the recent <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/12/us/harper-lee-atticus-finch-racist/">howls of betrayal</a> over Atticus’s racism in social and print media seem rather simple-minded: it isn’t really the same character, but a character with the same name. </p>
<p>Here in Go Set a Watchman, Atticus Finch bristles with all the threatened white masculinity that would hardly have been unusual for a 72-year-old man in 1950s Alabama. In that sense, he feels less like the paragon of virtue we encountered in Mockingbird, and more like an ordinary man of his times. </p>
<p>The novel offers a critical observation of the sectional tensions of the 1950s, and Lee uses it to rehearse arguments about segregation and states’ rights. While it isn’t one of the most sophisticated novels on race in America, it is an intriguing <a href="https://theconversation.com/go-set-a-watchman-exposes-american-obsession-with-white-saviours-44720">document of its volatile age</a>.</p>
<h2>A different voice</h2>
<p>Lee made some critical changes when, on the orders of her editor, she went back to the drawing board with Go Set a Watchman. A key part of To Kill a Mockingbird’s perennial appeal is surely Scout’s endearing first-person narration. Go Set a Watchman’s third-person viewpoint is less engaging, but also more disenchanted: perhaps this is why, stripped of his daughter’s admiring gaze, Atticus emerges as a flawed spokesman for smalltown small-mindedness. </p>
<p>But it also means the narrative voice has to take us on the journey back to Maycomb at arm’s length. We lose the intimate, confessional immersion of Mockingbird’s world – and with it, the idealist sentiment that seemed to draw many of its loyal readers in.</p>
<p>The fuss over the publication will fade, and in time we’ll just be left with the novel itself, forever a necessary appendix to its more famous, final version. Go Set a Watchman is a first run at another, better novel; an unpolished but occasionally still a lyrical and evocative piece of writing. But it’s also an angrier, more disillusioned, and more obviously political work. And in that sense, it feels like the book we deserve.</p>
<p>Because reading it now, in 2015, its depiction of a divided American South inevitably casts us back to the troubled era when a young Harper Lee conceived of it. That was a time before the march on Washington, before Selma and before the Civil Rights Act. Half a century on, the sequel is being published when a man with African heritage is president of the United States. Much has changed. </p>
<p>Yet we are also aware of our own difficult moment: of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-accumulated-injustices-of-the-trayvon-martin-case-16061">Trayvon Martin</a>, of <a href="https://theconversation.com/michael-brown-ferguson-and-the-nature-of-unrest-30501">Michael Brown</a>, of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ferguson-has-reinforced-racial-fear-and-lethal-stereotypes-3467">Ferguson, Missouri</a>. A few weeks ago, a young white man attended a Bible study group at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and, after an hour, took a gun from his bag and <a href="https://theconversation.com/hate-violence-and-the-tragedy-of-the-charleston-shootings-43579">shot dead nine people</a> because they were black. </p>
<p>Reading Go Set a Watchman’s depiction of a segregated post-war America, we are aware that much has changed in the years since it was written. Much, but not enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Storey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lee’s second novel is an angrier, more disillusioned, and more obviously political work than her classic, To Kill a Mockingbird.Mark Storey, Assistant Professor of American Literature, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/373492015-02-08T23:59:39Z2015-02-08T23:59:39ZTo Kill a Mockingbird, My Brilliant Career and long-lost ‘sequels’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71415/original/image-20150208-28589-9n8whn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harper Lee, pictured circa 1962, has announced a return to the literary world. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>By now there can be few people who don’t know Harper Lee’s supposedly long-lost manuscript, Go Set a Watchman, <a href="https://theconversation.com/harper-lees-gamble-could-undermine-her-mockingbird-37160">will be published</a> in July. It will be the first book published by Lee since To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 and, with both novels essentially hewn from the same manuscript, the works are intimately connected.</p>
<p>When a beloved story ends, whatever the medium, there is a sense of loss and disappointment. We can re-read or re-watch a book or TV series, or turn to fan fiction and different formats <a href="http://www.darkhorse.com/Zones/Buffy">such as comics</a>, in an attempt to continue our immersion in a favourite world and extend the adventures of its characters. </p>
<p>The temptation to give official life to popular books after the death of the author is often too strong to resist.</p>
<p>L Frank Baum’s Oz series was taken up by a new “Royal Historian of Oz”, Ruth Plumly Thompson, who published 19 books in the 1920s and 1930s. Geraldine McCaughrean wrote the “official sequel” to J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy (1911) almost a century after the original in 2006. </p>
<p>And after rights to a Winnie the Pooh sequel reverted from Disney – who had turned the character into a lucrative merchandising phenomenon – the estate of A.A. Milne <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/10/pooh-bear-sequel-david-benedictus">authorised David Benedictus</a> to write Return to the Hundred Acre Wood in 2009. </p>
<p>The Gothic family sagas of V.C. Andrews continued to corner the market for tales of incest even after her death in 1986, with more than 50 additional novels authored by a ghostwriter. Recently it was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/new-writer-continues-stieg-larssons-bestselling-dragon-tattoo-series-20150130-132cih.html">announced that</a> Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series, for which he wrote three of ten projected novels before he died in 2004, will be continued by a new author. </p>
<p>Readers’ desire for more once an original author has passed away rarely leads to satisfaction. But what if the original author happened to write a prequel or a sequel around the same period as their most famous book?</p>
<p>Such is the case with Go Set a Watchman, the forthcoming book by the reclusive Harper Lee. Many who hold To Kill a Mockingbird dear have been celebrating the news of a second work of fiction.</p>
<p>The novel is set 20 years after the events depicted in To Kill a Mockingbird, but was written prior to the high-school English mainstay. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/harper-lee-published-july-28687808">Lee has said</a> she was advised by her editor to write another manuscript, from the perspective of Scout Finch as a child, and Go Set a Watchman was left aside. </p>
<p>As strange as the situation seems, there is a similar case in Australian literary history, albeit by an author who did publish other works of fiction and non-fiction. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71414/original/image-20150208-28615-cia4u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miles Franklin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like Lee, Miles Franklin’s first novel became one of the most successful books ever written in her home country. My Brilliant Career (1901) was – as with Mockingbird – narrated in first-person by a girl, Sybylla Melvyn, who is a teenager coming into womanhood.</p>
<p>Franklin felt her novel had been misread, a process that began with the alteration of her original title: My Brilliant(?) Career, and was heightened by the perception that is was an autobiography. (She even withdrew the book from publication, and it was not reprinted until after her death in 1954.) </p>
<p>Franklin immediately wrote a satirical sequel, The End of My Career, to right the situation, but publishers rejected it. <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=S0OEaxE-Hc0C&pg=PA26&dq=%22my+career+goes+bung%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LanUVLGFKeL6mQW0y4GQAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22my%20career%20goes%20bung%22&f=false">According to Penelope Hanley</a>, the manuscript was “too audacious, with characters too recognisable”. </p>
<p>It was not until 1946 that the work was published as My Career Goes Bung. Like Lee’s long-thought-vanished first manuscript, what was to become My Career Goes Bung was also thought lost for a substantial period. Franklin believed it had been thrown into a furnace in Chicago when a man had wanted to use the trunk that contained a number of Franklin’s manuscripts. </p>
<p>Franklin was also something of a recluse in that she lived overseas for more than 30 years and published a number of novels in the latter part of her career under the pseudonym “Brent of Bin Bin”.</p>
<p>Both Lee and Franklin <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-04/harper-lee-publish-new-book-50-years-after-to-kill-a-mockingbird/6068174">were inhibited</a> by the weight of the success of their first published novels. </p>
<p>Though published almost half a century afterwards, the sequel to Franklin’s most successful novel was obscured by the original, the reception of which it directly responded to. While Lee was never satisfied with any of her subsequent attempts to write both fiction and non-fiction manuscripts. </p>
<p>In both cases, editors declined early manuscripts that were subsequently thought to have been destroyed. When it was finally published, readers did not find My Brilliant Career: Part Two in My Career Goes Bung, which deliberately rewrote the original to achieve different ends. </p>
<p>Go Set the Watchmen, which will be published in its original unedited format and focalised through an adult Scout, is also unlikely to give readers all of the pleasures to be found in To Kill a Mockingbird. </p>
<p>Yet the millions of readers of one of the highest selling books of all-time will be curious to see the world once again through the eyes of Scout Finch. </p>
<p><br>
<strong>See also: <br></strong>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harper-lees-gamble-could-undermine-her-mockingbird-37160">Harper Lee’s gamble could undermine her Mockingbird</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37349/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
By now there can be few people who don’t know Harper Lee’s supposedly long-lost manuscript, Go Set a Watchman, will be published in July. It will be the first book published by Lee since To Kill a Mockingbird…Michelle Smith, Research fellow in English Literature, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/372022015-02-05T18:11:03Z2015-02-05T18:11:03ZWhat should readers look for in Harper Lee’s new novel?<p>The announcement of the upcoming publication of Go Set a Watchman – a sequel to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird actually written <em>before</em> the famous novel – has, not surprisingly, set off a flurry of excitement and speculation. Pre-orders of the book have already made it an <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/02/04/harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-is-already-a-best-seller/">Amazon bestseller</a>. </p>
<p>Yet many have <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/04/harper-lee-go-set-a-watchman-health_n_6610832.html">raised questions</a> about the sudden announcement: it came shortly after the death of Harper Lee’s beloved sister, Alice, who as a lawyer (“Atticus in a skirt” Lee once called her), vigilantly protected Lee’s interests. Suspicions abound that Lee’s current lawyer, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/02/04/meet-the-lawyer-who-found-harper-lees-new-novel/">Tonja Carter</a> – who discovered the old copy of Go Set a Watchman – may have seized the opportunity to profit from an elderly woman now residing in an assisted living facility. (Lee <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31147034">has dismissed</a> such speculation.) </p>
<p>In Go Set a Watchman, the adult Scout returns home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York to visit her father. According to publisher HarperCollins, Scout seeks “to understand her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.”</p>
<p>How should devoted fans of Lee’s first novel – originally published in 1960 – respond to a second novel published 55 years later? One possible reaction is trepidation. Will To Kill a Mockingbird be tarnished through an inferior portrayal of an adult Scout? In this new work, will we recognize the charming voice of the earlier novel? </p>
<p>In the late 1950s, Lee’s editor read the original manuscript of Go Set a Watchman, deemed the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood the strongest parts, and recommended that these be the premise for a new draft (what became To Kill a Mockingbird). Presumably, the editor did not consider the original manuscript of Go Set a Watchman fit for publication.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71227/original/image-20150205-28578-10d30l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71227/original/image-20150205-28578-10d30l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71227/original/image-20150205-28578-10d30l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71227/original/image-20150205-28578-10d30l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71227/original/image-20150205-28578-10d30l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71227/original/image-20150205-28578-10d30l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71227/original/image-20150205-28578-10d30l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lee chats with childhood friend Truman Capote in a 1966 photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/trumancapote/15862749172/in/photolist-qaJJFo-4LaJvj-4L6q4r-4Lawch-8AMbZy-HLL7b-Zyc5U-4yqEGq-8bGB1n-4MZNGQ-c4pgLo-8bGART-6zLv72-8hLBBJ-eUgd7g-eUsC1m-eUsBMA-eUgdYv-eUgdRV-eUgdPe-eUsAtJ-eUsApG-eUsAbC-eUszTQ-eUgcZa-4xVBpX-4RDLfr-3nUrgR-4BKeje-4REdjv-4RHVkL-4GBMoS-euoVh-eUgjJ6-eUsGw3-eUgdwP-pTpf5z-euoUY-euoTW-euoUg-jGUfyM-me6idc-6akyug-8irSab-gc993N-b4uCGP-mU9dq-5WL4AW-9JSZSW-4tSozv">Steve Schapiro/Corbis</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>But beyond questions of quality, there are very real questions about setting and character. <a href="http://www.lib.miamioh.edu/multifacet/record/mu3ugb3522567">I’ve written about</a> ways in which Lee criticizes the traditional social norms of 1930s Alabama, while presenting models for defiance of these norms. For example, Dolphus Raymond – a white man in a relationship with a black woman – is able to circumvent the racist social system by pretending he is an alcoholic whose unconventional choice can be written off as part of his disease. Furthermore, in addition to the overt criticism of the racist social structure, Lee offers a playful critique of gender norms: she portrays Scout as a tomboy more comfortable wrestling with boys than wearing traditional feminine clothing.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71230/original/image-20150205-28594-6oxh2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71230/original/image-20150205-28594-6oxh2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71230/original/image-20150205-28594-6oxh2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71230/original/image-20150205-28594-6oxh2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71230/original/image-20150205-28594-6oxh2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71230/original/image-20150205-28594-6oxh2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71230/original/image-20150205-28594-6oxh2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee depicts a racist society, in which most romantic relationships were portrayed as either strained or perverse. How will an adult Scout emerge from this world?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/47427194@N06/4784713192/in/photolist-7A7paA-pjTcvG-npqr3n-879LPw-dZhEp3-cN6zHj-atxpCt-8hNUx3-8Z71mw-6FRPrW-e1nbtS-8iabyQ-f76UyU-bh7hFV-64sQu8-fxoUYi-4wu8Vi-a3cjhn-aTjqxt-cfcRTY-dzziRv-74Mwoi-Mrosu-7Rjrw3-cf7Xa7-9j2NBJ-bAQYmT-9iYEKT-8cfbGZ-cf95Qo-aDRDvn-7Ymugr-4Er6MU-eGKatp-db4WB-6zx9BX-nAJgjV-P4pud-81HBbG-gRJCJh-bNYUu4-bww9ZT-noBCDK-Mrp29-n27Urb-4xZJLW-4xVuLn-4xVuMc-8YAWyY-MrwNF">T and L basement/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Lee also opens a path for the young Scout later to assume an unconventional sexual identity. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee’s depiction of heterosexual relationships includes almost no positive examples; meanwhile, she highlights negative cases such as Scout’s Aunt Alexandra’s strained, distant relationship with her husband, and – much worse – the sexual abuse of Mayella Ewell by her own father. The novel calls into question racial and gender norms while legitimizing the violation of social boundaries. Indeed, Scout’s beloved Atticus encourages defiance of social structures in order to be true to one’s conscience, even agreeing to label Boo Radley’s killing of Bob Ewell an accidental suicide.</p>
<p>Go Set a Watchman will answer the incipient questions about Scout’s identity that To Kill a Mockingbird subtly poses. Although parts of To Kill a Mockingbird are told in an adult voice, the novel never tells us whether the adult Scout has married or has children. Will the adult Scout of Go Set a Watchman – now living in New York – have acquired even more distance from the racist, small-town, Southern values portrayed in To Kill a Mockingbird? Will she, as an adult woman, violate gender and sexual norms? Or, since Go Set a Watchman was actually written before To Kill a Mockingbird, will the adult character be a more conservative, traditional version of Scout?</p>
<p>Until the novel’s July 14 release, we can only wonder.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Fine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The announcement of the upcoming publication of Go Set a Watchman – a sequel to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird actually written before the famous novel – has, not surprisingly, set off a flurry of…Laura Fine, Department Chair of English , Meredith CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/371602015-02-04T05:45:15Z2015-02-04T05:45:15ZHarper Lee’s gamble could undermine her Mockingbird<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71038/original/image-20150204-14335-cnkjwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lee's second novel, Go Set a Watchman, will have a more adult centre of gravity. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Burke</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, and was voted <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2138827/To-Kill-a-Mockingbird-voted-Greatest-Novel-Of-All-Time.html">The Greatest Novel of All Time</a> in a London Daily Telegraph poll of 2008. To say there was a little pressure on its follow-up – some 55 years later – would be an understatement. </p>
<p>Lee, 88, has <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/mockingbird-author-harper-lee-publish-second-novel-160859906.html">announced</a> she will in July publish her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, involving some of the same characters as To Kill a Mockingbird. It is certain to be a commercial success, and indeed Lee’s publishers, Harper Collins, are planning an initial print run of 2 million copies.</p>
<p>In truth, though, Go Set a Watchman will be less a “new” novel than a variorum edition, or “director’s cut,” of To Kill a Mockingbird itself. In that work’s original manuscript, which <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/03/harper-lee-new-novel-to-kill-a-mockingbird">turned up by chance</a> last year, the focus is not so much on the six-year-old Scout Finch, from whose perspective Mockingbird is related, but on Scout Finch as a New York lawyer who returns to her fictional southern town of Maycomb to visit her father, lawyer Atticus Finch, who defended Tom Robinson against charges of rape. </p>
<p>Lee’s original editor persuaded her to relinquish this adult centre of gravity, to abandon her ambitious modernist time-shifts, and to tell Scout’s story not through flashback but through the eyes of a child within a more traditional linear sequence. As things turned out, one of the reasons for Mockingbird’s immense popularity was the way the book reconciled edgy and difficult racial issues through a child’s apparently innocent consciousness. </p>
<p>In that sense, Mockingbird spoke perfectly to its time, manifesting itself in classrooms throughout the world as a less rebarbative version of Huckleberry Finn, with Lee’s book speaking to the complexities of American racial conflict from within the safe confines of family life. </p>
<p>Although the novel does address issues of rape, sexual violence and embryonic sexuality, it simultaneously keeps them at a safe distance through the way it mediates them all through the eyes of a young child. But since its publication, the treatment of race in American fiction has moved on apace, in works by Toni Morrison and many others. It will be interesting to see whether Lee’s “new” novel stands the scrutiny of readers in a different century. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71029/original/image-20150204-25536-12v0j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harper Lee, circa 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like her exact contemporary JD Salinger, who died in 2010, Lee has made a profitable career out of various forms of silence, both artistic and personal. Not only did she never publish another book after Mockingbird, she also refused consistently to speak or grant interviews about her famous novel. </p>
<p>With typical reticence, when declining to address one Alabama audience after being inducted into an Academy of Honor she remarked on how “it’s better to be silent than to be a fool”.</p>
<p>Go Set a Watchman will thus represent a significant risk for this least productive of writers. It will be interesting to see whether this first version of the novel does actually succeed in addressing racial and family issues in all of their multifarious adult complexity. Lee’s recent remarks on how she was “a first-time writer, so I did what I was told” would seem to imply a belief on her part that the original editor did her a disservice, artistically if not commercially, by editing out the story’s flashbacks and turning the book into a more conventional narrative. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if Go Set a Watchman disappoints, readers may conclude that the original editors knew what they were doing and that the book’s mass-market appeal derives not from its artistic subtlety or complexity but from its sentimental pungency, its capacity to hit all the right notes.</p>
<p>George W. Bush <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/14666-harper-lee-wins-presidential-medal-of-freedom.html">presented Lee</a> with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, and Barack Obama awarded her the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-03-02/streep-taylor-are-among-20-recipients-of-national-arts-humanities-medals">National Medal of Arts</a> in 2010, precisely because Mockingbird ticks so many of America’s conventional boxes. The novel textually valorises racial empathy, legal justice, family feeling and innate childhood wisdom, and as a cultural object it embodies the classic American virtue of overwhelming popularity in a commercial marketplace. </p>
<p>It would not have been so surprising if Go Set a Watchman had been published as a scholarly curiosity after Lee’s death, just as unfinished manuscripts of Salinger and Ralph Ellison have been produced recently by academic publishers. But by sanctioning the publication during her lifetime, Lee would seem to be taking the bold gamble late in life of staking a claim for artistic originality and legitimacy. </p>
<p>Concurrently, she runs the risk of undermining, or at least placing in a different light, the market niche of an indeterminate patriotic sentiment on which all of her fame and fortune have been based. </p>
<p><br>
<strong>See also:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-kill-a-mockingbird-my-brilliant-career-and-long-lost-sequels-37349">To Kill a Mockingbird, My Brilliant Career and long-lost ‘sequels’</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37160/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Giles receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, and was voted The Greatest Novel of All Time in a London Daily Telegraph poll of 2008…Paul Giles, Professor, Challis Chair of English, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.