text:
Atticus Finch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Atticus Finch
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, in the 1962 film adaption
First appearance
To Kill a Mockingbird
Last appearance
Go Set a Watchman
Created by
Harper Lee
Portrayed by
Gregory Peck
Information
Gender
Male
Occupation
Lawyer
Family
Jeremy Finch (father)
John Hale "Jack" Finch (brother)
Alexandra Finch Hancock (sister)
Caroline Finch (sister)
Spouse(s)
Jean Graham Finch (deceased)
Children
Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch
Jean Louise "Scout" Finch
Relatives
Edgar (cousin)
Joshua (cousin)
Francis Hancock (nephew)
Nationality
American
Atticus Finch is a fictional character in author Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird. A preliminary version of the character also appears in the novel Go Set a Watchman, written in the mid 1950s but not published until 2015. Atticus is a lawyer and resident of the fictional Maycomb County, Alabama, and the father of Jeremy "Jem" Finch and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. Lee based the character on her own father, Amasa Coleman Lee, an Alabama lawyer, who, like Atticus, represented black defendants in a highly publicized criminal trial.[1] Book Magazine's list of The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900 names Finch as the seventh best fictional character of 20th-century literature.[2][3] In 2003 the American Film Institute voted Atticus Finch, as portrayed in an Academy Award-winning performance by Gregory Peck in the 1962 film adaptation, as the greatest hero of all American cinema.[4]
Contents
[hide]
1 Impact on the legal profession
2 Social references
3 Go Set a Watchman
4 References
5 Bibliography
Impact on the legal profession[edit]
Claudia Durst Johnson has commented about critiques of the novel, saying, "A greater volume of critical readings has been amassed by two legal scholars in law journals than by all the literary scholars in literary journals".[5] Alice Petry remarked, "Atticus has become something of a folk hero in legal circles and is treated almost as if he were an actual person".[6] Examples of Atticus Finch's impact on the legal profession are plentiful. Richard Matsch, the federal judge who presided over the Timothy McVeigh trial, counts Atticus as a major judicial influence.[7] One law professor at the University of Notre Dame stated that the most influential textbook from which he taught was To Kill a Mockingbird, and an article in the Michigan Law Review asserts, "No real-life lawyer has done more for the self-image or public perception of the legal profession", before questioning whether "Atticus Finch is a paragon of honor or an especially slick hired gun."[8]
In 1992 Monroe Freedman, a professor of law and noted legal ethicist, published two articles in the national legal newspaper Legal Times calling for the legal profession to set aside Atticus Finch as a role model.[9] Freedman argued that Atticus still worked within a system of institutionalized racism and sexism and should not be revered. Freedman's article sparked a flurry of responses from attorneys who entered the profession holding Atticus Finch as a hero and the reason for which they became lawyers.[10] Freedman argued that Atticus Finch is dishonest, unethical, sexist, and inherently racist, and that he did nothing to challenge the racist status quo in Maycomb.[11] Freedman's article sparked furious controversy, with one legal scholar opining, "What Monroe really wants is for Atticus to be working on the front lines for the NAACP in the 1930s, and, if he's not, he's disqualified from being any kind of hero; Monroe has this vision of lawyer as prophet. Atticus has a vision of lawyer not only as prophet but as parish priest".[9] In 1997 the Alabama State Bar erected a monument dedicated to Atticus in Monroeville marking his existence as the "first commemorative milestone in the state's judicial history".[12]
Social references[edit]
Atticus Finch's willingness to support social outcasts and victims of prejudice is the eponymous inspiration for the name of the Atticus Circle, which is an organization composed of "straight allies" (that is, heterosexual people supportive of the LGBT-rights movement).[13] Former president Barack Obama referenced Atticus Finch as an ideal American character. In addition Atticus was mentioned during one of Obama's speeches.
Go Set a Watchman[edit]
In July 2015, days before Lee's highly anticipated second novel Go Set a Watchman, was officially published, the first chapter was released on The Guardian for public viewing. On that day, a New York Times review of the book (which is set about twenty years after the time period depicted in Mockingbird but is not a chronological sequel)[14] revealed that Atticus, depicted in this version as being in his early seventies, is portrayed as a far less-progressive character. He makes comments that favor segregation and has attended a Citizens’ Council meeting. This has proved controversial to many readers, unaware perhaps that although To Kill a Mockingbird was published first, Watchman is the first draft of the text that later became Mockingbird and the characterizations and key plot details between the two books are not only different but sometimes contradictory.[15]
In terms of plot, Tom Robinson is acquitted in Watchman while in Mockingbird his unjust conviction as the result of prejudice was a central part of not only the story but why Atticus is seen culturally as such a righteous and progressive character. His defense is based on not just Robinson's innocence but on his fundamental equality. His closing argument is a more polished version of the progressive argument the adult Jean Louise makes in Watchman and there are other instances where both versions contain the same descriptions word for word.[16] This kind of character development, where motivations and ideals between characters, for reasons of plot, are changed is not unusual in the process of creative writing. Apart from the more progressive depiction of Atticus, the depiction of the town itself, especially the African-American characters, is also dramatically altered between the two drafts.[17] Real-life comparisons with Lee's father, Amasa Coleman Lee, have also been made in the two differing versions of Atticus in that originally Lee was in favor of segregation but became more liberal later in life, later changing his views to those of Integration. [18] Tay Hohoff, Lee's editor, has also been argued to have played a major part in the character development of the novel and particularly Atticus' liberal transformation. Jonathan Mahler of The New York Times notes in his article The Invisible Hand Behind Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’[19] that Ms. Hohoff, at the same time as she was guiding Ms. Lee through the Mockingbird re-write, was working on her own biography of the early-20th-century New York activist and humanist John Lovejoy Elliot. He notes that the book, A Ministry to Man, was published in 1959, a year before Mockingbird. [19]
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Boston, Talmage (June 2010). "Who was Atticus Finch?" (PDF). Texas Bar Journal. 73 (6): 484–485. Retrieved 2013-02-05.
Jump up ^ "Book Magazine's The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900". InfoPlease.com. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
Jump up ^ Book Magazine, March/April 2002 (March 2002). "100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900". Talk of the Nation. NPR. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
Jump up ^ "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains" (PDF). afi.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 20, 2012. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
Jump up ^ Johnson, Boundaries p.25-27
Jump up ^ Petry, p. xxiii
Jump up ^ Petry, p. xxiv
Jump up ^ Lubet, Steven. "Reconstructing Atticus Finch." Michigan Law Review 97, no. 6 (May 1999): 1339–62.
^ Jump up to: a b Margolick, David (February 28, 1992). "At the Bar; To Attack A Lawyer In 'To Kill a Mockingbird': An Iconoclast Takes Aim At A Hero". The New York Times. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
Jump up ^ Monroe H. Freedman, ""Atticus Finch, Esq., R.I.P.,"" 14 LEGAL TIMES 20 (1992); Monroe H. Freedman, ""Finch: The Lawyer Mythologized,"" 14 LEGAL TIMES 25 (1992) and Monroe Freedman, Atticus Finch – Right and Wrong, 45 Ala. L. Rev. 473 (1994).
Jump up ^ Metress, Christopher. "The Rise and Fall of Atticus Finch." The Chattahoochee Review; 24 (1): September, 2003
Jump up ^ "'Mockingbird' Hero Honored in Monroeville." Birmingham News (Alabama): May 3, 1997; Pg. 7A.
Jump up ^ "About Atticus Circle". 2009. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
Jump up ^ http://qz.com/452650/harper-lee-revisions/
Jump up ^ Sacks, Sam (July 10, 2015). "Book Review: In Harper Lee’s 'Go Set a Watchman' Atticus Finch Defends Jim Crow". The Wall Street Journal.
Jump up ^ http://qz.com/452650/harper-lee-revisions/
Jump up ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/review-harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-gives-atticus-finch-a-dark-side.html?_r=0
Jump up ^ Stevens, Laura (July 13, 2015). "Memories of the Man Who Inspired Atticus Finch". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
^ Jump up to: a b Mahler, Jonathan (July 12, 2015). "The Invisible Hand Behind Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’". The New York Times. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
Bibliography[edit]
Johnson, Claudia. To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries. Twayne Publishers: 1994. ISBN 0-8057-8068-8
Johnson, Claudia. Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents. Greenwood Press: 1994. ISBN 0-313-29193-4
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins: 1960 (Perennial Classics edition: 2002). ISBN 0-06-093546-4
Mancini, Candice, ed. (2008). Racism in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird , The Gale Group. ISBN 978-0-7377-3904-6
Petry, Alice. "Introduction" in On Harper Lee: Essays and Reflections. University of Tennessee Press: 1994. ISBN 1-57233-578-5
Shields, Charles. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Henry Holt and Co.: 2006. ISBN 0-8050-7919-X
Michiko Kakutain. "Review: Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Gives Atticus Finch a Dark Side" nytimes.com: 2015.
[hide]
v
t
e
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
Characters
Atticus Finch
Film
To Kill a Mockingbird
Prequel
Go Set a Watchman
Other
characters
popular culture
Broken
""Hey, Boo": Harper Lee and To Kill A Mockingbird"
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atticus_Finch&oldid=801380033"
Categories:
Characters in American novels of the 20th century
Fictional characters from Alabama
Fictional lawyers
To Kill a Mockingbird
Fictional characters introduced in 1960
Fictional American people of English descent
Drama film characters
Fictional politicians
Hidden categories:
Use mdy dates from June 2012
Navigation menu
Personal tools
Not logged in
Talk
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Namespaces
Article
Talk
Variants
Views
Read
Edit
View history
More
Search
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page
Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version
Languages
Español
Bahasa Indonesia
Italiano
Norsk
Simple English
Edit links
This page was last edited on 19 September 2017, at 09:41.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Cookie statement
Mobile view

values: mw-page-base noprint

values: mw-head-base noprint

attrs: id class style

values: firstHeading firstHeading en

values: siteSub noprint

values: jump-to-nav mw-jump

value: th

attrs: colspan style

values: text-align:center;font-size:125%;font-weight:bold;background: #892003; color: #FFFFFF;

value: tr

value: td

value: i

values: text-align:center;background: #892003; color: #FFFFFF;

values: List of To Kill a Mockingbird characters

values:
infobox
width:22em;border-spacing: 2px 5px;

values: Edit section: Impact on the legal profession

values:
/wiki/Richard_Matsch
mw-redirect
Richard Matsch

values:
/wiki/Monroe_Freedman
mw-redirect
Monroe Freedman

values:
/wiki/Straight_allies
mw-redirect
Straight allies

values:
/wiki/LGBT_rights
mw-redirect
LGBT rights

values: -moz-column-width: 30em; -webkit-column-width: 30em; column-width: 30em; list-style-type: decimal;

values: To Kill a Mockingbird in popular culture

values: "Hey, Boo": Harper Lee and To Kill A Mockingbird (page does not exist)

values: nowraplinks collapsible autocollapse navbox-inner

values: Category:Characters in American novels of the 20th century

values: Category:Fictional characters from Alabama

values: Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1960

values: Category:Fictional American people of English descent

values: Discussion about edits from this IP address [ctrl-alt-n]

values: A list of edits made from this IP address [ctrl-alt-y]

values: You are encouraged to create an account and log in; however, it is not mandatory

values: You're encouraged to log in; however, it's not mandatory. [ctrl-alt-o]

values:
/wiki/Atticus_Finch
View the content page [ctrl-alt-c]
c

values: Discussion about the content page [ctrl-alt-t]

values: p-namespaces navigation vectorTabs p-namespaces-label

values:
p-variants
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-variants-label

values: Past revisions of this page [ctrl-alt-h]

values: p-views navigation vectorTabs p-views-label

values:
p-cactions
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-cactions-label

values:
mw-wiki-logo
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page

values:
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page [ctrl-alt-z]
z

values: Featured content – the best of Wikipedia

values: Find background information on current events

values:
/wiki/Special:Random
Load a random article [ctrl-alt-x]
x

values: portal navigation p-navigation p-navigation-label

values: Guidance on how to use and edit Wikipedia

values: About the project, what you can do, where to find things

values: A list of recent changes in the wiki [ctrl-alt-r]

values: portal navigation p-interaction p-interaction-label

values: List of all English Wikipedia pages containing links to this page [ctrl-alt-j]

values: Recent changes in pages linked from this page [ctrl-alt-k]

values:
/wiki/Wikipedia:File_Upload_Wizard
Upload files [ctrl-alt-u]
u

values: A list of all special pages [ctrl-alt-q]

values: Permanent link to this revision of the page

values: Link to connected data repository item [ctrl-alt-g]

values: Printable version of this page [ctrl-alt-p]

values:
uls-settings-trigger
Language settings
0
button
true

values: /static/images/wikimedia-button-1.5x.png 1.5x, /static/images/wikimedia-button-2x.png 2x

values: /static/images/poweredby_mediawiki_132x47.png 1.5x, /static/images/poweredby_mediawiki_176x62.png 2x

values:
suggestions
display: none; font-size: 13px;

values: mediawiki ltr sitedir-ltr mw-hide-empty-elt ns-0 ns-subject page-Atticus_Finch rootpage-Atticus_Finch skin-vector action-view