Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (18 page)

The moral searching of Atticus Finch reaches a climax in the final pages of the novel as he struggles to understand Heck Tate's insistence that Bob Ewell fell on his knife—another lie, though not as obvious as Nathan Radley's attempted deception about his tree. At first, Atticus stubbornly insists that he won't hush up Ewell's death—thinking that Jem somehow had stabbed Ewell—because he could never look Jem in the eye after being compliant in such a cover-up. Atticus asserts that he can not live one way in public and another way at home (
TKAM
314). But when he is eventually persuaded that Boo Radley, not Jem, has stabbed Bob Ewell, Atticus finally accedes to Heck Tate's fictional construct in order to protect Boo Radley's shy, sheltered, and innocent reclusivity.

Atticus relents because Boo Radley has acted to prevent a crime from being committed. As Tom Robinson is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time and so is unfairly convicted of a rape he does not commit, Boo Radley is the right person in the right place at the right time and is mercifully freed from public attention for a killing he does commit. Boo saves Jem and Scout in much the same way that Atticus saves the community from the rabid dog. When Atticus asks Scout if she could possibly understand, she responds: “Mr. Tate was right. . . . It'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?” (
TKAM
317).

Lee leaves it to Scout to weigh the ultimate moral quandary of the novel. Boo Radley's childlike gifts of carved soap and shiny pennies are like the song of the mockingbird, his innocence like Tom's, his peaceful nature like the songbird's. Boo's eyes, colorless like his father's, are so gray and empty that Scout thinks he might be blind—but nonetheless Boo actually sees Ewell's threat to Jem and Scout and saves “his” children. These qualities of blindness and innocence, and the visible need to protect Boo Radley's privacy (which Atticus has advocated since the very beginning of the novel whenever Jem, Scout, and Dill attempted to make Boo “come out” from his chosen seclusion) clearly prevail over any desire Atticus might have to reveal or publicize the mere factual events of the stabbing. Despite the argument some make that Tate is asking Atticus to lie, Atticus indeed does uphold the truth, because he chooses to grant precedence to the higher moral truth that it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Bending the law a little bit in order to achieve a higher moral purpose is the lasting legacy of Atticus Finch, along with the understanding that establishing long-lasting legal change—albeit a slowly won achievement—is often attained by bending the law and striving for flexibility. By bending the hearts and minds of individuals in society like the Cunninghams, the law can be reshaped and reformed, so that more perfect justice can be achieved. Harper Lee's narrative and characters, along with the deep and sensitive thoughts of Atticus and Scout, lead to hope and anticipation for this change, and no doubt will continue to inspire generations of readers to join in efforts to redeem the law from its failure and to bend it toward a future of equality, compassion, and justice.

Works Consulted

Johnson, Claudia Durst.
“To Kill a Mockingbird”: Threatening Boundaries.
New York: Twayne, 1994.

Lee, Harper.
To Kill a Mockingbird
. 1960. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

Lubet, Stephen. “Reconstructing Atticus Finch.”
Michigan Law Review
(May 1999): 1339–1362.

Osborn, John Jay. “Atticus Finch—The End of Honor.”
University of San Francisco Law Review
(Summer 1996): 1139–1142.

Phelps, Teresa Godwin. “The Margins of Maycomb: A Rereading of
To Kill a Mockingbird
.”
Alabama Law Review
(Winter 1994): 511–530.

Roark, Marc L. “Loneliness and the Law: Solitude, Action, and Power in Law and Literature.”
Loyola Law Review
(Spring 2009): 45–77.

Shaffer, Thomas L. “Growing Up Good in Maycomb.”
Alabama Law Review
(Winter 1994): 531–561.

——
—. “The Moral Theology of Atticus Finch.”
University of Pittsburgh Law Review
(Winter 1981): 181–224.

Shields, Charles J.
Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee.
New York: Henry Holt, 2006.

Woodard, Calvin. “Listening to the Mockingbird.”
Alabama Law Review
(Winter 1994): 563–584.

Robert C. Evans

I think I see what it really is—a child's book. When I was fifteen I would have loved it. Take out the rape and I think you've got something like Miss Minerva and William Green Hill. I think for a child's book it does all right. It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book. Somebody ought to say what it is.

—Flannery O'Connor on
To Kill a Mockingbird
(411)

Although Harper Lee's
To Kill a Mockingbird
is one of the most widely read and widely taught novels of all time, surprisingly little academic criticism has been devoted to it (Johnson,
Threatening
20). This neglect seems to have resulted, in part, from several assumptions: first, that the book is intended mainly for adolescents and is not a piece of serious, “mature” literature; second, that the book is mostly valuable for the social and moral lessons it teaches, so that its artistry and craft are relatively unimportant; and, finally, that
Mockingbird
in fact contains little real artistry and craft but is instead relatively simple and unsubtle. The novel has been criticized, for instance, for allegedly failing to integrate its two main plots—a criticism that has been effectively refuted by Claudia Johnson
1
—and in general it has been assumed to lack any very complex aesthetic design. In this essay, I hope to address some of these criticisms, especially by focusing on the ways Lee compares and contrasts two key characters: Boo Radley and Bob Ewell. I hope to show how these characters act as foils to one another throughout the text, so that their final confrontation at the conclusion of the novel is not a merely convenient contrivance (with Boo as a kind of small-town Southern deus ex machina) but the culmination of a pattern that has run throughout the text.
2

I

Before focusing on the contrasts between Boo and Bob, however, it may be worthwhile to suggest the ways in which numerous similar sets of paired characters help to structure this allegedly unsophisticated novel. By setting a whole series of characters in relevant relations to one another, Lee produces something more than a simple narrative for children; instead, she produces a work of art that is carefully designed to achieve significant thematic and aesthetic coherence. Some paired characters are obviously compared; others are clearly contrasted. In either case, however, Lee seems to have used pairing as a way of structuring her novel and reinforcing its major themes. Even the overall structure of the book—which is broken into two major parts—suggests that pairing is crucial to the fundamental design of
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Likewise, the fact that the narrative revolves around the experiences of two young siblings (rather than just a single child), and that the two children consist of a boy and a girl, helps illustrate the many ways in which pairings are essential to the general design of Lee's novel.

Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, for instance, are obviously similar characters. Both are quiet and reserved; both are the victims of obvious prejudice; and both have run-ins with the local legal system. Yet Boo—because of his race, his family connections, and, ultimately, his mental handicap—is treated far more leniently by the law than is Tom. This is the case even though Boo is actually guilty of various kinds of misconduct (including, eventually, a killing), while Tom is completely innocent of a major crime. Both men, of course, are “innocent” in the most fundamental sense, but the important similarities between them also help to highlight significant contrasts and thus help reinforce a major theme of the novel: Boo, because he is white and therefore automatically privileged, repeatedly benefits legally, whereas Tom is sent to prison (and ultimately dies) on the basis of one false accusation.

Ironically, another significant pairing in the book involves the modest Tom Robinson and Bob Ewell, Tom's arrogant accuser. Both men and their families live in poverty on the edge of town, and in fact it is because of this physical proximity that Tom actually does have some real and undeniable contact with Ewell's daughter. Both men are, to some degree, outsiders in genteel Maycomb—Tom simply because of his race and Ewell because of his lower-class economic standing as well as his low-class character. Both men are fathers to a significant number of children, but Tom is clearly a loving and beloved paternal figure, while Ewell is negligent and even abusive. Tom is loved both by his children and by his wife, whereas Ewell's wife is long since dead, and an incestuous relationship with his daughter is implied in courtroom testimony. Thus, Tom is at the center of a healthy (if impoverished) family, while Ewell presides over a family of children who are unfortunate in practically every way, especially in the character of their father. Both the similarities and the contrasts between Tom and Ewell, then, help reinforce many of the novel's major themes, especially the theme of race. If it were not for Tom's race, his sterling character might make him a respected member of the community; likewise, if it were not for Ewell's race, Ewell would have almost no social standing at all.

A similar kind of pairing can be seen by comparing and contrasting Bob Ewell and Atticus Finch. Both men are fathers (and fatherhood is indeed one of the most significant themes of this novel), but it would be hard to imagine two fathers more strikingly different. Atticus is a constant, loving, gentle, and inspiring presence in the lives of his children, whereas Ewell is negligent, self-centered, unloving, and hard-tempered. Both men are widowers, but whereas Atticus obviously adores his son and daughter and provides a stable and affectionate home life for them (including a kind of surrogate mother in Calpurnia), even the mere number of Ewell's children is unknown (“Some people said six; others said nine” [
TKAM
194]), and Ewell obviously could not care less about his children's education, their health, or even their cleanliness (193–194). Atticus's gentle nature makes him reluctant to hurt anyone or anything, including animals, although he is able and brave enough to kill a rabid dog when circumstances make the killing necessary. Ewell, in contrast, is by nature a vicious man—willing to lodge a false and potentially deadly accusation, and willing (eventually) to attack two innocent children, though only in the dead of night. Atticus and Ewell could hardly be more different, and their courtroom confrontation is simply the highpoint of many episodes in which their contrasts are either highlighted or implied.

Another such pairing involves Scout, the young narrator of the novel, and Mayella Ewell, the nearly adult woman who accuses Tom (at her father's insistence) of sexually assaulting her. Both girls are motherless, and in each case the girl's father is the major influence on her life. Scout, though, is obviously an embodiment of youthful innocence, whereas Mayella (who in various ways seems a victim of her father) comes to seem a rather corrupt figure by the end of the book. Her corruption is rooted not in her sexual desire for Tom but rather in her willingness (however coerced she may feel by Bob Ewell) to connive in sending an innocent man to potential death. Scout, obviously, has some flaws of her own (especially in her initial mockery of Boo Radley and also in her somewhat callous treatment of Walter Cunningham when he visits her home), but whatever faults Scout exhibits are quickly corrected by her father or by Calpurnia, both of whom provide strong moral guidance both for Scout and for her brother Jem. Mayella, however, lacks such guidance from her own father, and one of the tragedies of the book is that Bob Ewell manages to pervert Mayella so thoroughly by the end of the trial that he almost turns her in some ways into a carbon copy of himself. Ewell may or may not sexually assault his daughter (although this possibility is strongly implied [
TKAM
221]), but he clearly helps to corrupt her ethics. In contrast, the relationship between Scout and Atticus is everything one could hope for in the bond between a parent and a child. Atticus definitely has physical contact with Scout, but it is always of the most tender and innocent kind. Most important, however, is the moral guidance Atticus provides. Scout can always respect her father in ways that Mayella can never really respect Bob Ewell.

Finally, one more instance of paired characters—this time a rather comic one—deserves examination. In the opening chapters of the book, Lee goes out of her way to contrast Atticus Finch as an influence on children with Miss Caroline Fisher, the young new teacher at Scout's school. Miss Caroline, whose inadequacies as an instructor result not only from practical inexperience but also from exposure to “pernicious” modern educational theories, displays little skill as a teacher and little talent in relating to other human beings. She insults the intelligence of all her students by reading them ridiculously infantile stories, and she particularly insults the intelligence of Scout, who is already a highly skilled reader thanks to the example and encouragement of her father, whom Miss Caroline then proceeds to denigrate as a negative influence on Scout's learning (
TKAM
18–20). Before long, the teacher is so frustrated with Scout that she actually raps the girl's hand with a ruler (
TKAM
24), punishing the girl physically in a way that Atticus never would (because Atticus would never need to). Atticus, instead, shows his children intellectual and moral respect, treating them as young persons who are developing quickly into adults and who are capable of understanding reason. He doesn't hesitate to criticize them when they are wrong (as when he rebukes them for acting out episodes from the life of Boo Radley in the public streets), but he never once hits his children, nor does he act condescendingly to children in general, as Miss Caroline does. In fact, Atticus treats children with the dignity and respect he shows everyone, including Scout's teacher herself, whom he easily forgives for her mistakes. By contrasting Miss Caroline and Atticus, Lee once more uses paired characters to underscore important ideas and to strengthen the structure of her novel.

Many more examples of these kinds of pairings of characters might easily be cited. The firm but loving Calpurnia, for instance, is clearly contrasted with bossy, fault-finding Aunt Alexandra as a female influence on Atticus's children, just as Atticus himself is obviously contrasted with the intolerant Alexandra (his own sister) as a parental figure. Likewise, the generous-spirited Calpurnia, who takes the Finch children to an all-black church with her, is sharply contrasted with a black woman named Lula, who censures Calpurnia's behavior (
TKAM
135–136). The gossipy Stephanie Crawford is contrasted, as a neighbor, with the far more appealing Miss Maudie Atkinson. Atticus is clearly a far different kind of parent than Mr. Radley, Boo's father, and he provokes a far different kind of response from his children than does Mr. Radley, whom Boo attacks with a pair of scissors.

To Kill a Mockingbird
is clearly built around an ever-lengthening series of paired characters—characters whose similarities and differences are both often illuminating. By structuring the book in this way, Lee gives it a kind of artistic coherence that makes it far superior to the mere rambling reminiscence it might easily have been. Scout may be recalling events and personalities she first encountered when she was a very young girl, but those events and personalities are presented with a good deal of deliberate design—design that helps make the novel more than simply a book for (or about) children. The more one examines
To Kill a Mockingbird
, the more one finds it deserves the stature it has obviously won as one of the most widely taught and widely appreciated of all American novels. It is not simply a book that is valuable for its ethical “message”; rather, it is a well-structured work of art in which the pairing of various characters is central to an impressive artistic coherence.

II

Of all the pairings of characters in
To Kill a Mockingbird
, perhaps none is more intriguing than the unlikely combination of Boo Radley and Bob Ewell. The similarity of their first names, differing only by a single letter, is the first potential indicator of such a pairing.
3
Boo Radley seems, at first, to reflect a highly romantic, gothic, and childish view of evil. Yet “evil” is not only nonexistent in Boo but in fact turns out to be a source of positive good. Bob Ewell, on the other hand, embodies a kind of evil that is unfortunately all too real, malevolent, and undeniable. In shifting her narrative focus from Boo to Bob, Lee also alters the tone and atmosphere of the novel, turning what begins as mainly a nostalgic, amusing children's book into a highly disturbing exploration of personal and social immorality. As the novel develops, readers come to realize that Boo, far from being the source of fear that his very nickname suggests, is in fact a source of genuine kindness and altruistic benevolence. By the middle of the novel, it is entirely obvious that Boo is far more sinned against than sinning; he is a victim rather than a victimizer; and although he has good reason to be bitter and angry, for the most part he responds to his misfortunes with simple stoic withdrawal. He does, it is true, unexpectedly lash out at his chief tormentor—his father—with a pair of scissors, but that random act of spontaneous violence seems to be simply a one-time, impulsive outburst until he later (much later) stabs and kills Bob Ewell to protect the Finch children from Ewell's vicious nighttime attack. Ironically, even this act of extreme and literally fatal violence only enhances our sense of Boo's basic benevolence. He uses his knife not in his own interests but rather in the interests of others. In this respect as in so many others, he is the exact opposite of Bob Ewell.

Ewell is an obviously malevolent figure right from the start, but by the end of the novel he has gone from bad to worse. His narrative trajectory, in fact, is precisely the opposite of Boo Radley's, for whereas Boo goes from seeming a mysteriously gothic villain to being a kind of actual if inadvertent hero, Bob develops from an obviously bad man (willing to abuse his own adolescent daughter and then put an innocent man's life at risk) to something even worse: a lurking, potentially murderous assailant who threatens and stalks utterly defenseless children. Ewell is loud, crude, self-centered, and vicious, whereas Boo is quiet, thoughtful, modest, and compassionate. Boo only
seems
a villain, whereas Ewell's villainy is instantly apparent and only grows more and more clearly malignant as the book develops. Ewell is a corrupt and cruel father to his own children, whereas Boo acts as an increasingly compassionate and even protective parental figure to the Finch children as the novel progresses. At the beginning of the book, Boo merely leaves small trinkets for them in the hollow of a tree; at the end of the novel, he has saved their very lives. Ewell, in contrast, goes from seeming an almost comically malign figure (a man who quickly makes a fool of himself in the courtroom) to being a deeply vicious and increasingly dangerous villain who cannot refrain from revenge, even when he has technically won his case. Boo is thought to be mentally disturbed, but it is actually Bob who seems murderously unbalanced. In all these ways and in many others, then, Boo Radley and Bob Ewell are clear narrative foils, and by comparing and contrasting these two figures, Lee adds an element of structural sophistication to her text—an element that has often been overlooked.