“Go Set A Watchman”: a realistic, if difficult, epilogue to “To Kill A Mockingbird”
Scout is all grown up, sort of. She lives on her own, she has her own opinions and worldview and she is visiting home. Scout, or I should say Jean Louise Finch, learns some unwelcome aspects of her home-town, friends and family she was not aware of in her younger years.
Honestly, this is simply a hard to read book if you liked “To Kill A Mockingbird.” The usual characters have changed and it is as much of a struggle for the reader as it is for Jean Louise. Jem has died in the 20 years since we left Maycomb, Atticus isn’t as immaculate as we all thought, Calpurnia is distant at best.
It is also an uncomfortable climate in the South. It is set soon after the Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling and the NAACP and the Northern states are set as villains to most of Alabama. Conveniently enough for Jean Louise, she is visiting from New York.
The novel deals with social issues at the time but has some parallels to today. As anyone grows older, aspects of their childhood become tainted one by one. It may be discovering that Chuck E. Cheese’s is kind of sketchy or finding out that a grandparent might be pretty racist. Scout gets a whole bunch of past-shattering all at once.
The book is nostalgic for two reasons. If “To Kill A Mockingbird” is part of your past, seeing character development at a 20-year jump makes you miss Scout and Jem theorizing about their neighbor Boo. It also is nostalgic because the growing pains Scout goes through are not unlike some of the growing pains anyone in their 20’s will go through.
The book can be exhausting and confusing at times, but that is what makes it well written. Harper Lee makes you confused and upset just as easily as she does one of her characters. The book may not be the epilogue people wanted for “To Kill A Mockingbird,” but that may just be because the original didn’t lend itself to an epilogue.
Scout grows up, Maycomb shows its true opinions and characters are not who we thought they are. If you don’t want to see “To Kill A Mockingbird” develop don’t read “Go Set A Watchman.” I honestly wouldn’t blame you. But “Go Set A Watchman” is definitely well written and gives a realistic continuation from an American classic novel.
—Jeffrey is a senior majoring in Journalism. He didn’t read “To Kill A Mockingbird” until he was 19 on a long plane ride, but it is one of his favorite books. He might have cried at one point while reading it, but who knows. You can contact him at dahdahjm@gmail.com.