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Volume 30, Number 4 (1996) reprinted by permission of the Law Review© cite as 30 U.S.F.L. REV. 1139 A Discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird
By JOHN JAY OSBORN,
JR.*
"[To Kill a Mockingbird] always got a strong response because students have a strong need for heroes of a particular type, someone who represents a set of values. Atticus Finch embodies those values, and kids encounter him with a sense of relief. Atticus is certain of what he believes and that kind of certainty hardly exists today."1DAVID GUTERSON'S VIEW of To Kill a Mockingbird2 is the traditional one, and conforms with many elements of the movie. However, I take issue with this conventional interpretation in the following article. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in a small town in the Deep South. A mistreated young woman, perhaps sexually molested by her father (a despicable racist drunk), tries to flirt with an upstanding African-American man. He rejects her advances. Her father then forces his daughter to bring a false charge of rape against the African American. No white lawyer - apparently there are no black lawyers in town - is willing to defend the African American, with the exception of Atticus Finch. Atticus always wears a full suit, even on stifling hot days, because he is a "serious" lawyer: one who believes that the law should be applied fairly to all people. He is a widower, and a single father with two small children. At the trial, Atticus proves conclusively that the African American is innocent. Nevertheless, the all-white jury, many of whom previously tried to break into the jail and lynch the defendant, convict him. Even though the innocent defendant has been convicted, the father of the white girl feels shamed by the defense that Atticus has put on in court. He decides to take revenge by killing Atticus' children. Fortunately, Atticus' children have befriended Boo Radley. Boo is a mentally retarded man. His parents have locked him in their house for several decades, presumably in the attic. Although no one has actually seen Boo in years, Atticus' children have begun to leave small trinkets for him. Boo has reciprocated by sneaking out in the middle of the night. However, this relationship has its dangers; Boo's parents have shot at the children when they have come too close to the home. Nevertheless, the children have established a relationship with Boo. As the children are walking home from a school play, they are attacked by the evil father, who intends to slaughter them with a butcher knife. But Boo has been watching the children. He jumps from the bushes, grabs the knife, and kills the evil father. In the aftermath, Atticus and the Sheriff decide to hush up the death. They create the story that the evil father was killed by falling on his own knife. Unfortunately, the falsely accused African American has tried to escape from jail. He has sensibly rejected Atticus' advice that he should sit tight during an appeal of his case. After all, Atticus' advice has not been very helpful thus far. The escape fails, and he is killed in the attempt. Guterson argues that people react positively to this story because they want to see characters who have a strong moral sense - a feeling for transcendent moral values or a "natural law" view of the world.3 He is correct that Atticus represents these values. Atticus stands in contrast to the evil father, whose values are completely transactional. The evil father desires to protect his family's position in society, and is willing to do so by any means possible, including killing innocent children. In this respect the characters mirror the competing views of Kingship in Shakespearian drama. These views are characterized by those who see Kingship as representing traditional values, as opposed to those who take a more Machiavellian approach to the position of authority. I argue, though, that To Kill a Mockingbird derives its staying power from another source. Although the film is about natural law values in confrontation with transactional positivist values, the genius of the film lies in its willingness to take a traditional natural law figure to the edge, to the point where he must accept transactionalist values in order to succeed. The film is less of a portrayal of a man of firm belief against a lawless society than many people (including Guterson) believe. Rather, To Kill a Mockingbird is more a film about a man standing up for traditional values to the point of insanity. The film asks the difficult question: At what point does belief in traditional natural law values become absurd? The audience is presented the story through the eyes of Atticus' young daughter, Scout. Seen through Scout's nine-year-old eyes, the town is a lovely place, full of great trees and white picket fences. It is as "user friendly" as a Mark Twain town designed for Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. However, the reality of the town is quite different if we isolate the event from the viewpoint. There is no doubt that the good African American is going to be convicted by the all-white jury no matter who represents him, which is why no lawyer but Atticus is willing to do so. The story told by the prosecution is absurd, and Atticus easily rips it to shreds. Nevertheless, it is a foregone conclusion that the jury will vote to convict. Even though everyone knows that a conviction is a certainty, the townspeople cannot resist a good lynching. They are stopped from doing so only because Scout joins her father at the jail door and stops them. This is a town in which it is perfectly acceptable to lock a lovable and harmless eccentric man in a house for his entire natural life. Even Atticus finds this a reasonable solution to the problem of mental illness. It is a town where the one decent lawyer, Atticus, is willing to hush up a murder committed by the eccentric who has defended his children. The sheriff also joins in this plan. In short, this is a place where the rule of law does not exist, where murder is tolerated by the authorities, where racism is brutal and rampant, and where the jury system is a mockery. It is only because we see this town from the viewpoint of a child - and few children do not see their childhood through rosy eyes - that we are made to believe that it is not absurd to view Atticus Finch as a reasonable man. What would a reasonable man, and an honorable attorney, have done if he had been confronted with the situation that Atticus faces? If he knows, as Atticus should know, that his client will certainly be convicted (if he is not lynched first), would he go through a charade of a trial? Let us imagine him not as Gregory Peck, but James Woods in True Believer.4 Knowing that his client was certain to be falsely tried, he would have gone to federal court seeking a writ of mandamus and asked that federal marshals be called. He would have realized that this was a town where an appeal to reason was impossible. He would have fought for his client by all means possible. Nevertheless, Atticus is in his own way more deluded and imprisoned than Boo Radley, the eccentric in the attic.5 Atticus cannot see beyond his law books. Indeed, he seems scared to do so, as if it would unleash the real demons in the town. He plays along with the system. Atticus is a willing participant in a ritual that he knows to be absurd. The issue presented by the film is not merely the heroic struggle of a man of values in a valueless society. The film's real power comes from posing the more difficult question: When does holding onto traditional values in a valueless world become not heroic but absurd? Atticus Finch is as childlike as his daughter Scout. His vision of the law is as unrealistic and yet as touching as her vision of childhood. Both hold views that are more eccentric than the town's identifiable eccentric, Boo Radley. To Kill a Mockingbird continues to have such power today because it is the one film that depicts the South poised to fall headlong into the Civil Rights Movement. In a town like this, willful, if nonviolent, disobedience to the "law" is the only possible alternative. The actions of "honorable men" like Atticus have become exercises in the absurd, believable only if we look at them through the eyes of a child. The Sixties are inevitable; we can hear the buses of the freedom marchers at the state line. It is a film that is often viewed as one that exalts traditional values - a white picket fence movie of the Fifties. In fact, it is the first great film of the Sixties that makes a convincing case that a new kind of lawyer is needed, one who will fight to eliminate the "system" rather than participate in it. The film shuts the door on the Fifties, while illuminating the hypocrisy of the decade's child-like vision. |
