Go Set a Watchman
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Some questions from book club
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(last edited
Oct 01, 2015 05:52AM
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Oct 01, 2015 05:35AM
A great discussion was had at book club yesterday, for those unable to make it here are a few of the questions posed yesterday. These were some of the ones that garnered the most opinions and generated the most talk!
Harper Lee writes, “Until comparatively recently in its history, Maycomb County was so cut off from the rest of the nation that some of its citizens, unaware of the South’s political predilections over the past ninety years, still voted Republican.” What is Harper Lee telling us about the period and the politics and attitudes of this small Southern town?
Think about the extended Finch family. What is their status in Maycomb? What is the significance of being a Finch in this small Southern town? Does it afford them privileges --- as well as expectations of them and responsibilities --- that other families do not share? Do the Finches have freedoms that others do not enjoy?
Describe the Jean Louise Finch of WATCHMAN. How does Jean Louise conform --- or not --- to the ideal of womanhood in the 1950s? What was that ideal? Compare her to her Aunt Alexandra and the women of Maycomb. Does she fit in with these women?
Talk about the Atticus portrayed in GO SET A WATCHMAN. Assuming you've read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, how might the novel color your ideas about the Atticus Finch in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? What was your reaction to some of the opinions he voices in WATCHMAN? Do they make him a more realistic --- if less heroic --- character than that portrayed in MOCKINGBIRD? Is Atticus racist? Would he consider himself to be racist?
Some loaded questions for sure.... feel free to discuss these or anything else that might have popped in to your brain, while reading this book! :)
Harper Lee writes, “Until comparatively recently in its history, Maycomb County was so cut off from the rest of the nation that some of its citizens, unaware of the South’s political predilections over the past ninety years, still voted Republican.” What is Harper Lee telling us about the period and the politics and attitudes of this small Southern town?
Think about the extended Finch family. What is their status in Maycomb? What is the significance of being a Finch in this small Southern town? Does it afford them privileges --- as well as expectations of them and responsibilities --- that other families do not share? Do the Finches have freedoms that others do not enjoy?
Describe the Jean Louise Finch of WATCHMAN. How does Jean Louise conform --- or not --- to the ideal of womanhood in the 1950s? What was that ideal? Compare her to her Aunt Alexandra and the women of Maycomb. Does she fit in with these women?
Talk about the Atticus portrayed in GO SET A WATCHMAN. Assuming you've read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, how might the novel color your ideas about the Atticus Finch in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? What was your reaction to some of the opinions he voices in WATCHMAN? Do they make him a more realistic --- if less heroic --- character than that portrayed in MOCKINGBIRD? Is Atticus racist? Would he consider himself to be racist?
Some loaded questions for sure.... feel free to discuss these or anything else that might have popped in to your brain, while reading this book! :)
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For me this book was mainly about Jean Louise growing up and becoming able to see things she couldn't as a child. In "To Kill a Mockingbird" it is scouts point of view as a child. Like most children she is inable to see any wrong her father can do, that's why you get the idea that he's perfect, however when she grows up she can now see the cracks in the pavement. Atticus may have been the same in the 1st book as he was in the second, but you saw him through young rose colored glasses. I don't know, just my opinion.
Alicia wrote: "For me this book was mainly about Jean Louise growing up and becoming able to see things she couldn't as a child. In "To Kill a Mockingbird" it is Scout's point of view as a child..."
This is a common back story that readers tell themselves to connect the two mismatched books. It's important to remember that Watchman was written before Mockingbird. Watchman contains inconsistencies, especially the outcome of the trial, and passages that were copied word for word into Mockingbird.
I view Watchman as a discarded early draft of Mockingbird. It's not a sequel. The child character of Scout in Mockingbird was not yet written nor fully conceived when HL wrote Watchman. So how can the "child's view" of Scout in Mockingbird be assumed in the "adult view" of Jean Louise in Watchman? That doesn't make sense to me.
This is a common back story that readers tell themselves to connect the two mismatched books. It's important to remember that Watchman was written before Mockingbird. Watchman contains inconsistencies, especially the outcome of the trial, and passages that were copied word for word into Mockingbird.
I view Watchman as a discarded early draft of Mockingbird. It's not a sequel. The child character of Scout in Mockingbird was not yet written nor fully conceived when HL wrote Watchman. So how can the "child's view" of Scout in Mockingbird be assumed in the "adult view" of Jean Louise in Watchman? That doesn't make sense to me.
Go Set A Watchman is so badly written and so boring I am having trouble reading it got my book club discussion. It makes me doubt that Harper Lee actually wrote To Kill a Mockingbird..Maybe Truman Capote actually did.
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