Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (15 page)

Jeffrey B. Wood

Scout, Jem, and Atticus Finch may be endearing and memorable characters in a work of classic fiction, but I would contend the main character of Harper Lee's
To Kill a Mockingbird
is the law. The law is the protagonist essentially because the novel describes in detail the ways that law governs social conduct and how society shapes its laws, and because Lee leads the reader to question the law's higher purpose and how to bend and change the law in order to meet its ideals. The story of the arrest and conviction of Tom Robinson personalizes and starkly exemplifies the way the law had so completely failed African Americans in the South before the civil rights movement of the 1960s (an era in which the novel became a celebrated and influential narrative of injustice). Indeed, fifty years after its publication, the novel remains a clarion call for racial justice and legal reform. Lee piercingly dissects the failure of Southern jurisprudence and explores its myriad contributing factors and devastating human consequences, through stories, characters, and—above all—the deep thoughts of Scout and Atticus Finch. Lee also uses Tom's story in a broader sense to explore themes critical to a reformed jurisprudence: equality before law, mutual understanding and respect, dignity, wise judgment, mercy, and humility. Thus Lee writes about a great injustice and at the same time teaches us about justice.

What should be done about injustice? A growing number of critics, including some in this volume, assert that Atticus Finch does not go far enough to adequately combat the unjust, prejudicial, and evil legal system of the Jim Crow South. This criticism is anachronistic and misses the point. Atticus may be a product of his time and society—“Maycomb County born and bred”—and he may appear at times to excuse the excesses of his neighbors. Notwithstanding these potential weaknesses, on every moral issue in the book, Atticus chooses the side that most nearly preserves human dignity, the common good, love of neighbor, equality, fairness, and the progress of humanity toward these values. Atticus is in many ways a barometer and expositor of Lee's ideas about the purpose of the law, especially in his insistence on the evil nature of institutionalizing such negative personality traits as prejudice, hatred, and narrow-mindedness.

Moreover, Atticus seems to understand that lasting legal change will not succeed unless people's hearts and minds also change, unless the law embodies the highest and best values of collective society, and unless the law is flexible enough to accommodate special circumstances. Lee suggests repeatedly throughout the novel that bending the law a little bit is appropriate and is preferred over strict adherence to rigid rules. At the same time, Lee suggests that the best way to achieve long-lasting legal reform is also a process of bending the law, a process that must be undertaken with care and understanding, particularly the understanding that flows from standing in others' shoes. The resulting changes in the law will of necessity be incremental and will occur over time, as society itself adapts and recognizes the need for such changes. Thus, the law will bend and will ultimately be reshaped by revisions and reforms that will preserve the highest and best aspects of jurisprudence, community, and culture, while correcting and attempting to eliminate its evil and its unjust failures. Lee's hope seems to be that the law will ultimately redeem itself, and therefore
To Kill a Mockingbird
is full of hope and expectation for this redemption.

Examining the way that the law bends in the novel as a result of facing particular challenges, therefore, is like studying the growth and development of a novel's protagonist. The protagonist usually always meets challenges and makes critical decisions about facing those challenges in the context of the events and stories in the narrative, interactions with other characters, and his or her own thoughts or ideas about life. If the law is the protagonist of
To Kill a Mockingbird
, therefore, exploring the dual meanings of “bending the law” in the context of the novel's stories and characters, as seen through the perceptive eyes of Scout and with the clarified wisdom of Atticus, is essential if readers want to understand the novel's enduring lessons about justice, legal reform, and social change.

The novel begins with Scout recalling the way Atticus resolves a dispute between Scout and Jem over what started it all (
TKAM
3). Atticus contends that both Scout and Jem are both right, signaling his ability to weigh opposing principles and find the good aspects of each. By balancing such competing values, as Atticus continually does throughout the novel, he demonstrates his tendency to always look for the higher good, particularly for the higher good that the law can serve. He appears to realize that competing truths are not always inconsistent. Instead, apparently contradictory ideas can coexist, and the crucible of competing values can help forge stronger and more long-lasting resolutions to the problems we face. Results reached by consensus over time are ultimately more successful because more people have an interest in seeing them succeed.

Lee's initial biographical sketch of Atticus Finch describes a stark and tragic example of the law's power when it bends, while also foregrounding the ignorance and fruitlessness of persisting in efforts to maintain a rigid, obstinate legal position. Lee recounts that early in his legal career, Atticus represented two men of the Haverford clan who killed the town's leading blacksmith in the presence of three witnesses and who then refused to accept the state's plea bargain in order to escape the death penalty (
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5). Lee describes the plea bargain as “generous” and likens the Haverford name and the family's local reputation to the pejorative term “jackass.” As Lee revisits the resulting conviction and hangings, she records that the event left Atticus with a “profound distaste” of the practice of criminal law.

This story shows that the law can be most powerful and useful to society when it is flexible. When the prosecution offers a plea bargain rather than insisting on the rigid prosecution of defendants to the full letter of the law, the prosecutor not only exhibits mercy and caring but also conserves resources, while still ensuring a certain level of punishment for the crime (because every prosecutor knows there is a risk of the jury overly sympathizing with the defendant, no matter how good the evidence). In the case of the Haverfords, a plea bargain could have mercifully allowed the defendants to live and would have preserved the possibility of their redemption and eventual contribution to society, their families, and posterity. Conversely, the rigid insistence on their innocence foreclosed these benefits and ultimately cost the Haverfords their lives. Lee underscores the point by linking the Haverford name with “jackass.” In addition, she emphasizes the profound dissatisfaction Atticus has with the experience, precisely because it fails to meet his ideals of flexibility within the legal process. The Haverfords' execution could easily have been avoided, if only the Haverfords could have bent a little bit from their obstinate legal position.

Lee's retelling of Arthur Radley's teenage difficulties just a few pages later also exemplifies the law's ability to bend to meet special circumstances. The younger Radley boy hung around with a rowdy gang and soon came before a judge on charges of disorderly conduct (
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11). Ironically, Radley's father rejects the judge's decision to send his son to the state industrial school (itself a humane approach to juvenile delinquency, as Lee wryly notes that the “punishment” rendered to the other boys in the gang actually gave them access to the best secondary education available in the state), and instead convinces the judge to release Arthur on the promise that he would ensure that the boy would cause no further trouble. In Lee's estimation, the judge “was glad to do so,” realizing that Mr. Radley's promise was his “bond.”

In this case, it may be said that the judge exercised extreme judicial flexibility by setting young Radley free on the basis of his father's word alone, with no financial obligation, no collateral, no probation, and no court supervision or any other involvement whatsoever. This example also shows the societal and legal importance of extrajudicial covenants; the judge valued Radley's promise as a bond even though it had no legal standing. Subsequently, young Radley—“Boo” as he became known—spent fifteen years confined at home under his family's tyrannical presence. Still later he spends some time being locked in the courthouse basement after reportedly stabbing the elder Radley in the leg with scissors. Boo ultimately returns to the family house, where he stayed, like a ghost.

In Boo's case, the law adjusted the punishment to the circumstances, recognizing the potential of parental supervision to produce reform and change. It is very clear that on several occasions, the judge, the sheriff, and the town council search for unique ways to give Boo Radley a second chance. The Radley narrative, however, also points out the unfortunate result of Mr. Radley's overbearing and vindictive nature. This lack of flexibility—in fact, the rigidity of his disciplinary actions—causes Boo to become a ghostly recluse because his father is unwilling to give him the freedom to make any more mistakes. Here, the law bends, but the elder Radley does not, an action that has several detrimental effects on his adolescent son.

Lee pointedly describes Mr. Radley as having colorless eyes, a thin upper lip, and ramrod-like posture, features that signal his rigidity and lack of empathy. Emphasizing that Mr. Radley's eyes did not reflect light and that God's law was his only law, Lee suggests that his inflexibility is a flaw of character dictated by a moral and religious intransigence and that his demeanor is unlikely to change. Colorless eyes also signify apathy, show indifference to Arthur's real needs, and imply dullness in the extreme. Indeed Calpurnia describes Radley as “the meanest man ever God blew breath into” (
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13). It is clear that Lee rejects the older Radley's tyrannical approach to punishment precisely because it lacks any sense of effectiveness or appropriateness in the specific circumstances.

Interestingly, during the first ten pages of the novel, Lee has already led the reader to draw several key observations about the law. First of all, she implies that the law must weigh differing values, ideals, and interests that may sometimes compete but may also be reconciled with care and wisdom. Second, the law can achieve the most goodness when people recognize that its power comes from gentleness and mercy. Moreover, she has indicated that the law's mercy is not universally recognized, and it is frequently refused rather than cultivated. Finally, the law is what people say it is; in the novel, not only judges, sheriffs, and council members, but also fathers, cooks, teachers, and peers establish complex regimes and rules that govern social conduct. For example, a baseball hit into the Radley yard was a lost ball with no questions asked—a rule that didn't bend (
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10). In addition, Scout's battles with Calpurnia, the family household helper and cook, were “epic and one-sided”—Calpurnia always won (
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6). As we have seen, old Radley dictates the stark existence of the Radley household, and his authority is upheld by a shaky covenant with the town authorities. Prosecutors attempt to find good results by offering plea bargains. Judges sometimes accept nontraditional penalties. Rules are sometimes rigid, sometimes bent.

In the second chapter of the novel, Lee further explores the complex folkways of Maycomb County through the example of the Cunningham clan, independent and self-reliant country people who refuse charity no matter how bleak their existence. Scout encounters young Walter Cunningham on the first day of school, recollecting her fascination with the senior Cunningham's payment to Atticus for legal services: stove wood, hickory nuts, smilax, holly, and turnip greens (
TKAM
23). She attempts to explain the Cunningham clan's trait of self-sufficiency to her schoolteacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, who is new to Maycomb, to help her understand why young Walter wouldn't accept money from the teacher to pay for a lunch (having none and not having forgotten one)—only to receive the teacher's confused scorn at her attempted explanation and an unexpected punishment as well. Although Lee implies the importance and vitality of all of these interrelated unwritten norms, she also notes the unbridled discretion of teachers (and others in authority) to decide for themselves whether to honor a departure from absolute rules and expectations.

The Cunningham clan plays a crucial role in the novel and seems to represent Everyman, individuals struggling to maintain their independence and common decency in the midst of the Great Depression. They pay their bills in kind—in fact, at times providing more than they owe. They send their children to school. They seemingly accept with general acclamation the common assumptions of social life—barter, self-reliance, honesty, frugality, attending school and church—and they passively tolerate the racism, segregation, and prejudice of the time as well. While Atticus Finch stands apart from the racism of Maycomb society, the Cunninghams are caught up in it, like most Southerners of the era. Yet their racism is not totally intransigent.

At the attempted lynching of Tom Robinson, for example, it is Walter Cunningham, Sr.'s, self-realization and awareness of other viewpoints that ultimately thwarts the lynching (
TKAM
175). Likewise, during the jury deliberations, a juror who is connected to the Cunninghams holds out for hours. Although the juror's actions are insufficient to actually render justice in Tom's case, they give Atticus (and the reader) hope for a “shadow of a beginning” of change (
TKAM
253). The Cunningham clan's willingness to bend a little and to consider a different viewpoint, both at the attempted lynching and during jury deliberations, constitutes one of the great revelations of the novel. In one sense, the Cunningham clan is a microcosm of a society bending to achieve long-lasting legal change, incrementally, slowly, perhaps uneasily, and not as fast as one might desire. Their bravery in resisting Maycomb's long-tolerated racist viewpoints, while not strong enough to save Tom's life in this one case, is clearly what Lee hopes will ultimately transform society.