Go Set a Watchman

by Harper Lee

Jem preached the longest, most tedious sermon she ever heard in her life. He said that sin was about the most sinful thing he could think of, and no one who sinned could be a success, and blessed was he who sat in the seat of the scornful;

Their whole skit is hilarious

Hester was saying, “—hasn’t been a good trial around here in ten years. Good nigger trial, I mean. Nothing but cuttin’ and drinkin’.”

Like lynchings, seen as entertainment

I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody, not just Negroes. I was given to understand that the reverse was to be despised. That is the way I was raised, by a black woman and a white man.

That's why she's somewhat different in this environment. She was raised in part by a black woman. And an imperfect but unusually good white man.

I hope to God it’ll be a comparatively bloodless Reconstruction this time.”

It was blacks in overwhelming majority who were killed

America’s a brave new Atomic world and the South’s just beginning its Industrial Revolution.

If the South is pre-Industrial England as he says, then why can't it join the North in essentially becoming Industrial, post-abolition England?

Why did I come back here? Just to rub it in, I suppose. Just to look at the gravel in the back yard where the trees were, where the carhouse was, and wonder if it was all a dream.

All Mockingbird fans have been wondering the same

I expect you to be a man, that’s all!”

Different from a Southern gentleman

Jefferson believed full citizenship was a privilege to be earned by each man, that it was not something given lightly nor to be taken lightly. A man couldn’t vote simply because he was a man, in Jefferson’s eyes. He had to be a responsible man.

One man, one vote. Or else just one man votes.

we naturally started shouting nigger. Took it out on them, because we resented the government.

Scapegoats

“You deny them hope. Any man in this world, Atticus, any man who has a head and arms and legs, was born with hope in his heart. You won’t find that in the Constitution, I picked that up in church somewhere.

Paul

Alexandra looked like other people when she cried.

Lovely little line

I’m not much of a lady, Aunty, but you are.” “You’re mistaken, Jean Louise, if you think you’re no lady,” said Alexandra.

Very different kinds of ladies, actually acknowledging one another

I just can’t take any more of your parables and diddering around.

Said about Jesus too

you confused your father with God.

Many children (perhaps all?) idolize their parents. But it's idolatry all the same.

He’s got a lawyer’s hide.

That is partly how he turns the other cheek

it’s always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you’ll get along.”

But the past is romanticized

the white supremacists fear reason, because they know cold reason beats them. Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

This is accurate, as stated. But mere reason never has the force to change those who are unreasonable at levels deeper than the intellect. The movement that handed the white supremacists a material defeat was the civil rights movement. That was a movement committed to Rev. Dr. King's nonviolent spirituality, and it was sustained by the deep-seated faith that had upheld African-Americans from the time of slavery.

the time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right—”

For Dr. Finch to say this is appropriate. He's obviously taken in the original: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (Luke 5:31-32)

As she welcomed him silently to the human race,

This had to happen