Reconstructing Atticus Finch? A response to Professor Lubet.

• Date: 01 May 1999
• Author: Althouse, Ann

"He's not an example, Dill.... He's the same in the courtroom as he is on the public streets."(1)

In one of her childishly obtuse moments, Scout, the narrator of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, denies that her father Atticus Finch is any sort of proper example of how a lawyer ought to act when cross-examining a witness. The prosecutor's cross-examination of the accused Tom Robinson has moved her friend Dill to tears:

I couldn't stand ... [t]hat old Mr. Gilmer doin' him thataway, talking so hateful to him --(2) Scout, who has taken her friend out of the courtroom, explains:

Dill, that's his job.... He's supposed to act that way.(3) Atticus, on the other hand, does not turn into a lawyer stereotype when he enters the courtroom. He faces the adversities and injustices of the courtroom with the same gentlemanly manner that he uses when interacting with the various characters that populate the charming but benighted town of Maycomb.

At this point in the story, Dolphus Raymond appears to reassure Dill:

I know what you mean, boy.... You aren't thin-hided, it just makes you sick doesn't it?(4) Dolphus is a man reduced to feigning abject alcoholism as he stumbles through the town that cannot understand why he, a white man, "preferred the company of Negroes."(5) He comforts Dill with a drink from the Coca-Cola bottle that he carries around hidden in a paper bag. That is his solution, his way to get along in Maycomb, an alternative to saying "the hell with them."(6) The reader agrees with Dolphus and Dill: the spectacle in the courtroom does sicken. The bitter racism shown in the book might move us, like Dill, to tears. But neither Dolphus nor Dill emerges as a model. The many readers inspired by the power of To Kill a Mockingbird want to be Atticus.

Atticus shows us how to stay in the imperfect courtroom. He does not refuse to interact with the people of Maycomb, despite their shortcomings. He knows he cannot single handedly cure all of the ills he perceives, but he does not despair or become insensitive to these wrongs. Instead, he maintains one way of behaving, which he uses in all situations. He's the same in the courtroom as he is on the public streets. For those entering the legal profession, who commonly worry that they will lose themselves in an overbearing and tainted alien culture, Atticus is a model of integrity, showing us how to persevere day-to-day when our contributions may be only very modestly incremental.

It is this moderation and willingness to continue to work within the system, really living in the world he was born into, and not any high degree of legal skill, that makes Atticus a paragon. I suspect that many of those who revere Atticus remember him as a brave and idealistic man who took an unpopular case and stood up to the evils of his society, but the book does not depict him that way. Atticus takes the case Judge Taylor assigns him. He does his duty: "[S]imply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally."(7) If he refuses to continue his work in a consistent manner, despite this personal burden, he loses his place in the moral order: "I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you and Jem not to do something again."(8) Atticus does not make a special idealistic decision in this particular case. As a man of integrity, he cannot depart from his established...