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Atticus Finch is a
fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a tradi ...
al character in
Harper Lee Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926February 19, 2016) was an American novelist best known for her 1960 novel ''To Kill a Mockingbird''. It won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Lee has received numerou ...
's
Pulitzer-Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made hi ...
-winning novel of 1960, ''
To Kill a Mockingbird ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' has become ...
''. 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 (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
, and the father of Jeremy "Jem" Finch and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. He represents the African-American man Tom Robinson in his trial where he is charged with rape of Mayella Ewell. Lee based the character on her own father,
Amasa Coleman Lee Amasa Coleman Lee (July 19, 1880 – April 15, 1962) was an American newspaper editor, politician, and lawyer. Family Lee was born in Georgiana, Butler County, Alabama in 1880 to Cader Alexander Lee, a Confederate veteran, and his wife, the f ...
, an Alabama lawyer, who, like Atticus, represented black defendants in a highly publicized criminal trial. ''
Book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...
'' magazine's list of ''The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900'' names Finch as the seventh best fictional character of 20th-century literature. In 2003, the
American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Lead ...
voted Atticus Finch, as portrayed in an
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning performance by
Gregory Peck Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood ...
in the 1962 film adaptation, as the greatest hero of all American cinema. In the 2018
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stage play A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. The writer of a play is called a playwright. Plays are performed at a variety of levels, f ...
adapted by
Aaron Sorkin Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American playwright, screenwriter and film director. Born in New York City, he developed a passion for writing at an early age. Sorkin has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, five Primetime ...
, Finch has been portrayed by various actors including
Jeff Daniels Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, comedian, musician, and playwright, known for his work on stage and screen playing diverse characters switching between comedy and drama. He is the recipient of several accol ...
,
Ed Harris Edward Allen Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor and filmmaker. His performances in ''Apollo 13'' (1995), '' The Truman Show'' (1998), '' Pollock'' (2000), and '' The Hours'' (2002) earned him critical acclaim and Academy Award ...
,
Greg Kinnear Gregory Buck Kinnear (born June 17, 1963) is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in ''As Good as It Gets'' (1997). Kinnear has appeared in many popular films, including '' Sabrina'' (19 ...
,
Rhys Ifans Rhys Ifans (; born Rhys Owain Evans; 22 July 1967) is a Welsh actor and musician. He was the frontman of Welsh rock music bands the Peth and Super Furry Animals. As an actor, he is best known for his roles in ''Notting Hill'' (1999), ''Kevin & ...
, and
Richard Thomas Richard Thomas or Dick Thomas may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Dick Thomas (singer) (1915–2003), American singing cowboy and actor * Richard Thomas (actor) (born 1951), American actor * Richard Thomas (author) (born 1967), American ...
.


Effect on the legal profession

Claudia Durst Johnson Claudia Durst Johnson is a literary scholar best known for her work on the novel ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', introducing the idea of the novel's gothicism and gothic satire. In the process of her research she befriended the author, Harper Lee. When ...
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". Alice Petry remarked, "Atticus has become something of a
folk hero A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore; a ...
in legal circles and is treated almost as if he were an actual person". Examples of Atticus Finch's impact on the legal profession are plentiful. Richard Paul Matsch, the federal judge who presided over the
Timothy McVeigh Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third ...
trial, counts Atticus as a major judicial influence.Petry, p. xxiv One law professor at the
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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 A mercenary, sometimes Pseudonym, also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a memb ...
." In 1992,
Monroe H. Freedman Monroe Henry Freedman (April 10, 1928 – February 26, 2015) was a professor of law and the former dean at Hofstra Law School. He lectured at Harvard Law School annually for 30 years, and was a visiting professor at Georgetown Law School from ...
, 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. Freedman argued that Atticus still worked within a system of institutionalized racism and
sexism Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers pri ...
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. 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. 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 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&n ...
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". 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".


Social references

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 An ally is a person who is associated with another as a helper; a person or group that provides assistance and support in an ongoing effort, activity or struggle. In recent years, the term has been adopted specifically to a person supporting one ...
" (that is,
heterosexual Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" ...
people supportive of the
LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, ...
movement). In 2016, the lawyer Joseph Madison Beck published the memoir ''My Father & Atticus Finch'', in which he noted the numerous parallels between his father Foster Beck's defense of a black man accused of raping a white woman in the 1938 trial ''State of Alabama vs. Charles White, Alias,'' and Atticus Finch's defense of Tom Robinson in ''To Kill a Mockingbird''. In a letter to the author, Harper Lee herself noted the "obvious parallels" between the cases (Lee was 12 at the time of the Charles White trial) and between Atticus Finch and Foster Beck, though she also stated that she could not recall the trial, and that ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' was a work of fiction. Former President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
referenced Atticus Finch as an ideal American character, and mentioned him during his farewell address to the nation on January 11, 2017.


''Go Set a Watchman''

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 ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' 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) 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. 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. 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. Real-life comparisons with Lee's father, Amasa Coleman Lee, have also been made in the two differing versions of Atticus in that originally Amasa Lee was in favor of segregation but became more liberal later in life, later changing his views to those of Integration.
Tay Hohoff Therese von Hohoff Torrey ("Tay Hohoff") (July 3, 1898 — January 5, 1974) was an American literary editor with the publishing firm J. B. Lippincott & Co. Strong-willed and forceful, she worked closely with author Harper Lee over the course of ...
, 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'' 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.''


References


Bibliography

*Beck, J. M. (2016). ''My Father and Atticus Finch: A Lawyer's Fight for Justice in 1930's Alabama.'' Athens, Georgia : The University of Georgia Press. *Johnson, Claudia. ''To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries.'' Twayne Publishers: 1994. *Johnson, Claudia. ''Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents.'' Greenwood Press: 1994. *Lee, Harper. ''To Kill a Mockingbird''. HarperCollins: 1960 (Perennial Classics edition: 2002). *Mancini, Candice, ed. (2008). ''Racism in Harper Lee's ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' '', The Gale Group. *Petry, Alice. "Introduction" in ''On Harper Lee: Essays and Reflections.'' University of Tennessee Press: 1994. *Shields, Charles. ''Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee.'' Henry Holt and Co.: 2006. *Michiko Kakutain. "Review: Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' Gives Atticus Finch a Dark Side" nytimes.com: 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Finch, Atticus Characters in American novels of the 20th century Fictional characters from Alabama To Kill a Mockingbird Fictional Democrats (United States) Literary characters introduced in 1960 Drama film characters Fictional American politicians Fictional American lawyers Fictional defense attorneys Fictional bibliophiles