Reply to comments on Reconstructing Atticus Finch.

• Date: 01 May 1999
• Author: Lubet, Steven

Reconstructing Atticus Finch(1) was intended to be provocative, so I am not surprised at the strength of the responses. Neither should I be surprised by the continuing reverence engendered by the fictional Atticus Finch; as I pointed out in my original essay, he is our moral archetype. Indeed, it was the accepted nobility of the character that made my question worth asking in the first place. What if Mayella had been attacked by Tom Robinson? Would Atticus still be a hero? To ask that question about a lesser figure would inevitably invite stock responses. Champions of the adversary system would support the defense; detractors would rail against it. I hoped to place the inquiry in a setting that would inspire a more textured debate, especially since it would be impossible to dismiss the efforts of Atticus Finch in the racially charged atmosphere of Depression-era Alabama.

Dean Burnele Powell and Professor William Simon each take the question head on, concluding more or less (more in Powell's case, somewhat less in Simon's) that the posited guilt of Tom Robinson would not diminish the stature of Atticus Finch. As Dean Powell put it, Atticus succeeds not because he defends the innocent, "but because he insists, as must every lawyer, on the freedom to make the arguments within the bounds of law that are necessary for the full...