Earlier this week, Ito and I attended a performance at the Kennedy Center of the play version of this moving and powerful novel by Harper Lee. It was a well-staged production, faithful to the movie as best I can remember it from 50 years ago. Beyond its laudable, powerful attack on racism, it champions a moral position I have trouble with.
The play centers on the story’s hero attorney, Atticus Finch, who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. The alleged rape victim, Mayella Ewell, was actually beaten by her father, Bob Ewell, because she had kissed the accused black man, Tom Robinson. Despite the valent efforts of Atticus to defend Tom, who could not have beaten the white girl on both sides of her head because of his unusable left arm from an earlier accident, the all while jury convicts him anyway.
The play opens with Atticus’s daughter, Scout, addressing the audience about the local newspaper’s report of the death of Bob Ewell by falling on his knife. No one can fall on their own knife, says Scout. What is going on here?
Near the end of the play the mysterious, reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley, who Scout and her older brother Jen have never actually seen before, carries an unconscious Jen to his home for treatment. Jen and Scout had been attacked in the night by their white trash neighbor Bob Ewell. When the sheriff finds the dead body of Bob Ewell, Atticus fears that his daughter has killed him during his attack on her and Jen. But the sheriff concludes it was Boo Radley who plunged the knife into Bob Ewell to protect the children.
In a private conversation between Atticus and the sheriff, it is decided that the Sheriff will claim that Bob Ewell fell on his knife rather than risk the verdict of a bigoted jury. Atticus does not want his children to hear the discussion of the lie. Bob Ewell was a bad guy and no one is very sorry that he is dead. The plan ends with Scout facing the audience and saying, “I guess he fell on his sword.”
The play has many instances in which Scout and Jen defy inappropriate customs and views. I applaud those attacks on bigotry and outmoded customs. We recently watched the British series “Cranford”, which masterfully depicts the power of customs (which fork to use and how to dress), the disruption of progress (the building of the railroad into this quant English town) and the ultimate adjustment to positive changes. I highly recommend it.
The moral dilemma for me is the following. Atticus correctly and bravely defended Tom against the clearly false charges. Both the Judge and the Sheriff were strongly on the side of the truth and the law, but bigotry won out. Thus, the judge and Sheriff set aside the law and lied to protect a good man and his good deed against a bad man. Good wins out but only because in this instance the Sheriff and Judge are on the side of ultimate justice.
Many Filipinos also accepted former President Rodrigo Duterte’s green light to kill drug dealers on the streets of Manila without trail. It may well have been that most of those killed were indeed drug dealers. But if we rely on ignoring the truth and the law to achieve good ends, we open a dangerous door. We can’t always rely on the Sheriff and the Judge to be good people. We need strong and trusted institutions as well.
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