48 pages • 1 hour read
Harper LeeGo Set A Watchman
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Jean Louise Finch
Jean Louise “Scout” Finch is a college-educated, 26-year-old, white resident of New York City. She is the story’s protagonist, fulfilling the archetype of the hero, but also exhibiting traits associated with the archetype of the innocent. She is courageous and stubborn with a strong sense of justice, but also naïve and ignorant of the world around her. Jean Louise is depicted as a rebellious contrarian, eager to circumvent the white South’s expectations of proper decorum, both in her personal lifestyle and in her political ideology. When confronted with an opposing view point, she digs in her heels, relying more on her own will and sense of right and wrong than a well-reasoned argument.
On her annual trip to her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama, Jean Louise discovers that things are changing at a pace that she is not comfortable with, leading her to escape the present through rosy retrospection. She takes further sanctuary in the past when she realizes that her father holds racist views that she cannot abide. This realization leads to an identity crisis as she must ultimately develop her own moral reasoning and identity distinct from her false perceptions of her father’s.
Atticus Finch
Atticus is a prominent lawyer in Maycomb, Alabama, and father to Jean Louise and the deceased Jem. He is presented as an ideal father—calm, patient, forgiving, and always willing to make time for his children.
At 72 years old, Atticus suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and a growing sense of loss of control as the white South is forced to change the way it does things. Atticus sits on the board of Maycomb’s citizens’ council, a group dedicated to preserving the Southern way of life through maintaining segregation and white dominance over the African American population. He views African Americans as unprepared for full civil rights and fears the NAACP will cause a second Reconstruction, further destroying the way of life with which he is both familiar and comfortable. These beliefs provide the catalyst for Jean Louise’s crisis and journey toward self-actualization. While Jean Louise expects Atticus to be angry with her for confronting him about his views and separating herself from him, he responds with pride, noting that she is becoming her own person just as he raised her to do.
Jack Finch
Jack Finch is the brother of Atticus and uncle of Jean Louise, who views him as “one of the abiding pleasures of Maycomb” (49). He is widely considered to be an eccentric, having left the medical profession as soon as he had made enough money to spend the rest of his life absorbed in Victorian literature. He is exceptionally fond of Jean Louise and her late brother Jem because he was in love with their mother and imagines them to be the children that he could have had with her.
Uncle Jack fulfills the archetype of the sage, knowing and understanding more than the protagonist. He tries to guide Jean Louise through her crisis using metaphor, but his words initially fall on deaf ears. After her conflict comes to a head, his guidance helps Jean Louise make sense of the world and find a way to proceed forward.
Henry “Hank” Clinton
Hank is Jean Louise’s childhood friend and beau for the two weeks per year she is in Maycomb. He is Atticus’s protégé in the law and has ambitions to use his education to better his hometown. Hank fulfills the archetype of the lover: concerned with his love for Jean Louise but willing to compromise his moral values and irrationally justify those compromises.
When pressed into conflict with Jean Louise after she learns that he is a member of the citizens’ council, he is more apt to beg for forgiveness than actually change his behavior. He is aware that the residents of the town consider him white trash and is mindful of their perceptions, more interested in the strategy of blending in than in voicing his convictions if doing so will risk social acceptance. This behavior leads to the dissolution of his relationship with Jean Louise.
