Standing on the Radley's Porch

As soon as I saw the news release about an additional book Harper Lee apparently wrote prior to writing To Kill a Mockingbird, I thought that I should re-read the first one in order to be ready to read the new one. Go Set a Watchman is placed in a setting twenty years after To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is still the main character and the plot explores her relationship as an adult with her lawyer father, Atticus Finch. From what I’ve read about Watchman, Lee’s publisher encouraged her to write Mockingbird to give context to Scout’s character in Watchman. 

I can’t remember when it was that I first read To Kill a Mockingbird, but it has been a while. Several years ago, while watching the movie – re-watching the movie actually – I jotted down the phrase “standing on the Radley’s porch” which comes near the end of the story and thought that phrase was pregnant with opportunity for reflection.

Reading this great story again provided me with an opportunity to think about lots of things. My father wasn’t a lawyer and my mother wasn’t deceased, but like Scout and Jem, my parents were different than the parents of many of my friends. In our house, Calpurnia was named Hester. She wasn’t there every day like Calpurnia, but she was a part of our family in ways that were important.

One of the shocking things about the book is the frequent use of the infamous n-word, but not from the lips of Atticus, Scout, or Jem. I wasn’t allowed to use that word growing up either. Unless you grew up in a world where Tom Robinson could be convicted simply because he was black, the world To Kill a Mockingbird describes sounds more fictional than real. I grew up knowing some Ewells and Cunninghams as well as some Link Deas and Miss Maudie Atkinson kind of people. 

One of the contrasts for me this time around is the difference in how the story is perceived. It has been so long I can’t honestly say I remember, but I’m fairly confident I would have assumed “that’s the way it is” as a response to the story. But this time, I kept thinking “could this really have been an accepted way of living?” The fact that the people of Macomb County kept re-electing Atticus Finch to the state legislature, despite his “radical” defense of Tom Robinson, probably speaks to their better nature. The fact that the jury convicted Tom simply because he was black reminds me of how difficult it is to do justice when the cultural voices around you object.

At the very end when Scout escorts Arthur “Boo” Radley back home after Boo helped prevent Bob Ewell from further harming Scout and Jem in retaliation for the defense Atticus provided Tom, there is that line in the story that I jotted down a long time ago: “standing on the Radley’s porch.” That phrase summarizes the transformation in Scout’s understanding of Boo Radley.

That transformation, if you know the story, is pretty impressive. Early on in the story Boo is some weird kind of human whose purpose apparently is to scare little children and provide them a target to make fun of. He is frightening, dangerous, and sometimes more of a ghost than a real human. But the story ends with Scout escorting him from Jem’s bedroom, through their house, on to the front porch where a conversation with Atticus and Sheriff Heck Tate occurs, and finally to the Radley’s porch. She even holds his hand as they walk from one house to the other. 

I still remember when I was given my first BB gun and I remember my mother’s lecture about not killing song birds in general and mockingbirds in particular. Boo Radley is one of the story’s “mockingbirds,” and Scout finally learns that by “standing on the Radley’s porch.”

It’s amazing how many mockingbirds there actually are when you’re brave enough to “stand on the Radley’s porch.” Perhaps Watchman will lead us to stand on a different porch and see some more mockingbirds.