Has living away from Maycomb-and in a place like New York-had an impact on Jean Louise? What does she think about New York and life there? What does the big city offer her that Maycomb does not-and vice versa? Now that Atticus is older and suffering from arthritis, why doesn’t Jean Louise move back to Maycomb permanently? “Maycomb expected every daughter to do her duty. Does she fit in with these women? What did you learn about them at the Coffee social that Aunt Alexandra hosts in Jean Louise’s honor? In both Mockingbird and Watchman, Alexandra tells Jean Louise that she is part of a genteel family and that she must at like a “lady.” How did ladies “act” in the first half of the twentieth century and is there such a thing as a “lady” today?Ħ. How does this grown-up woman compare to her younger self ? 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. Describe the Jean Louise Finch of Watchman. 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?ĥ.

Maycomb is a town without train service, and its bus service “was erratic and seemed to go nowhere.” How does this lack of connection isolate the citizens of Maycomb, and how does that isolation affect how they see themselves and outsiders? Early in the novel, her longtime friend Henry Clinton tells her “you’re gonna see Maycomb change its face completely in our lifetime.” What does he foresee that Jean Louise cannot-or perhaps does not want to see?Ĥ.Think about the extended Finch family. 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 are these predilections, and where do they originate? What is Harper Lee telling us about the period and the politics and attitudes of this small Southern town?ģ. If you have read Mockingbird, has the town changed in the intervening years? If so, how?Ģ. Describe the Maycomb of Go Set a Watchman. When Wa t c h m a n opens, Jean Louise Finch-now twenty-six and living in the North, in New York City-is returning to her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama. Go Set a Watchman takes place more than twenty years after To Kill a Mockingbird begins.

Harper lee watchman