On his journey, just as Childe Roland seems to have lost all hope, he encounters a large black bird which he decides must have been sent to him as a guide; in Watchman, Jack finds Jean Louise at her darkest moments and offers cryptic advice to rationalize the absurdities she has encountered since her return to Maycomb. Jack is represented in the poem by this bird in the way that he is the one to explain to Jean Louise what has been going on, and to help her to resolve the issues she has been having during her visit. Throughout the novel, Jean Louise has essentially been wandering in darkness, unstable and unsure where to go. She remembers that Uncle Jack had told her “Come to me. When you can’t stand it any longer, come to me” (Watchman 259).
…show more content…
In the poem, Childe Roland is wandering through the night, sure that there will be no end to his voyage, when “a great black bird [...] sail[s] past” (Browning n.p). Childe Roland believes the bird to be “perchance the guide [he] sought” (Browning n.p). After following in the bird’s direction, his path opens up, revealing “Dark Tower” he has been searching for. Jack resolving Jean Louise’s crisis and the black bird completing Childe Roland’s quest coincide, displaying the importance of each character allowing a guide to help them through their predicaments while also being able to make independent decisions regarding their own futures. The content of Robert Browning’s poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” and its relation to Go Set a Watchman is open to interpretation, and although most would assign Childe Roland to be representative of Jean Louise, there is also evidence showing Jack Finch as being the one depicted in the poem. Jack, being the younger sibling of Atticus, has always looked up to and admired his brother, and it is likely that the shock resulting in the “flagrant shift in [the] characterization of Atticus” (Hatoum n.p) caused him disillusionment, and even a sense of abandonment, feeling as though the morally upstanding, honorable man he grew up with has
In the poem, Childe Roland is wandering through the night, sure that there will be no end to his voyage, when “a great black bird [...] sail[s] past” (Browning n.p). Childe Roland believes the bird to be “perchance the guide [he] sought” (Browning n.p). After following in the bird’s direction, his path opens up, revealing “Dark Tower” he has been searching for. Jack resolving Jean Louise’s crisis and the black bird completing Childe Roland’s quest coincide, displaying the importance of each character allowing a guide to help them through their predicaments while also being able to make independent decisions regarding their own futures. The content of Robert Browning’s poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” and its relation to Go Set a Watchman is open to interpretation, and although most would assign Childe Roland to be representative of Jean Louise, there is also evidence showing Jack Finch as being the one depicted in the poem. Jack, being the younger sibling of Atticus, has always looked up to and admired his brother, and it is likely that the shock resulting in the “flagrant shift in [the] characterization of Atticus” (Hatoum n.p) caused him disillusionment, and even a sense of abandonment, feeling as though the morally upstanding, honorable man he grew up with has