How Does Atticus Finch Change

Written in the 1950s and published in 2015, Go Set a Watchman is set prior to the peak of the Civil Rights movement, but not too early to the Supreme Court decision of Brown v The Board of Education. Hesitant to the desegregation of schools, the South differed from the rest of the nation by not respecting the outcome of the case. The NAACP and their progressive ideas scare the Caucasian population as they see the ideas as a means to change their traditions. The stories protagonist, Jean Louise Finch is flabbergasted to find that such resistance is in her home town of Maycomb, Alabama. Harper Lee expresses change through Jean Louise viewing her family and friends, Atticus, Hank, and Aunt Alexandra, and how they differ from her childhood memories. …show more content…
Previously in To Kill a Mocking Bird, Atticus was viewed by his daughter, Jean Louise, as a hero that stood up to prejudices and fought for equality for an African American. Now in Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise finds her father defending an African American not for integrity, but to prevent the NAACP from gaining influence and power due to their resent ability to acquit African Americans. The two watches that Atticus carries with him symbolize habit and tradition, and the Citizens Council and the KKK meetings prove his fear of change by fearing a race of people that he knew to be separate from. Atticus’s age may be a factor in his thinking, but as Jean Louise remembered him, he had been just and fair with all people as a lawyer should be. With younger generations such as Hank’s, people like Atticus are passing down their ideas, fears and