48 pages • 1 hour read
Harper LeeGo Set A Watchman
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 6, Chapters 15-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Jean Louise sits in the ice cream shop that was once her house and remembers what her life was like when she lived there. She recalls being 14 and shaped like a bowling pin. In her recollection, she wears false breasts under her dress to go to a school dance with Hank. She has a wonderful time until the false breasts shift. Hank notices and pulls her outside. She is embarrassed and demands that he take her home, but instead, he grabs them and flings them into the night. They return to the party, and Jean Louise finds herself with a crush on Hank.
The next day, the principal is enraged by the pair of false breasts hanging over a patriotic sign. He demands to know who put them there. Jean Louise feels guilty over her part in the situation and wants to confess. Hank does, too, but Hank will be expelled if he does so, whereas Jean Louise will be punished less severely. Hank refuses to let Jean Louise confess, explaining that she was his date to the dance and he can’t let her take the blame. Jean Louise angrily tells him she does not need his protection. Jem has Jean Louise write a simple note stating that the false breasts appear to be like her own. After consulting with Atticus as his lawyer, Hank then convinces the other girls in the school to submit the same note. This way, no one can be punished beyond staying late after school.
As she comes to the present, Jean Louise wonders what she has done to deserve such discomfort in the present that she must find solace in the past.
Chapter 16 Summary
Jean Louise goes out for a walk with Hank, mainly to try to see whether his apparent internal change is reflected physically. Even so, she hesitates to talk for fear of causing him to say something unforgiveable. When the topic of the Maycomb locals comes up, Jean Louise mentions one of the ladies regurgitating her husband’s offensive views. Hank states that her world rises and sets with her husband and she is just “loving her man” (227). Jean Louise directly asks if he feels that’s what loving one’s man should look like—a loss of identity. He answers that it is true, in a manner of speaking. Jean Louise then pointedly informs Hank that she will not marry him. At first, he dismisses her statement, reminding her that she has said that before. She reiterates her point forcefully, stating that while she has never been in love with him, she did love him and had considered that enough to build a marriage on. Now, however, she does not love him at all. When he sees she is serious, Hank begs her to explain herself. She informs him that she saw him at the citizens’ council meeting and condemns him for being a member of what she considers to be a blatant hate group.
Hank tries to defend himself and Atticus by asking Jean Louise to look beyond the surface of things and judge men by their motives rather than their actions. He explains that Maycomb has certain ways of doing things and that his plans for improving Maycomb require being accepted by its people. Hank goes on to explain that Jean Louise is privileged by being a Finch and that he does not have the ability to boldly contradict popular opinion the way she does. Jean Louise denies this privilege and goes on to call Hank a coward, unaware that Maycomb is watching their fight. Hank follows her, begging for her to listen, and finally asks what he wants her to do. She informs him that she expects him to stay out of groups like the citizens’ council, regardless of who else is there. They continue to argue on their way home until Jean Louise announces that she cannot marry him because she “cannot live with a hypocrite” (234). To her surprise, Atticus appears behind her, stating that he does not know why she cannot live with a hypocrite as they “have as much right to live in this world as anybody” (235).
Chapter 17 Summary
Jean Louise finally confronts Atticus. When he asks her how she initially felt about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against segregation, she explains that she was infuriated. However, this anger was caused not by racism but by her perception that the court had circumnavigated states’ rights and the Tenth Amendment. In explaining that the actual desegregation was not the direct source of her ire, Jean Louise suddenly understands what Uncle Jack tried to tell her: The issue of civil rights and the plight of the African American people is “incidental” to her “war.”
Atticus responds to Jean Louise calmly, defending the citizen’s council and arguing that African Americans are not prepared for full civil rights because they are like infants “as a people” and that giving them these rights would result in a second Reconstruction (247). As a self-described Jeffersonian, he explains that he does not believe people should have the right to vote simply because they are people. He asks how she can “blame the South for resenting being told what to do about its own people by people who have no idea of its daily problems” (247).
Jean Louise admits that she considers African Americans to be “backwards” but calls him a coward, snob, and tyrant, claiming that the only justice he is interested in is the abstract kind that has no connection whatsoever to people. She tells him that if he wants to preserve the Southern way of life, he has to tell his friends that it starts in the home and use her as an example because everything she believed, she learned from him. His failure to overtly act in accordance with a white-supremacist point of view obscured from her the fact that he held these values and certainly did not teach her to adopt them herself. Jean Louise announces that she is now lost forever as she has lost her sense of place in Maycomb and cannot feel completely “at home anywhere else” (248).
Jean Louise asks why he didn’t remarry and raise her to be a mindless Maycomb debutante so that she could remain in blissful ignorance of these concerns. She laments that he never taught her “the difference between justice and justice, and right and right” (249). Jean Louise tells Atticus that her suffering is his fault for being a perfect role model to the point that his fall from grace has left her completely lost.
When Atticus tries to defend himself and the council, Jean Louise accuses him of denying African Americans their humanity by denying them hope. She asserts that he is no better than Hitler because he is intent on killing their souls rather than their bodies. Jean Louise acknowledges that changes in the treatment of African Americans would have to be slow, but she wonders what changes would occur if the Southern whites only gave basic courtesy to them for a single week, stating that she is surprised that they are as kind as they are considering what white America has done to them.
Jean Louise ends her tirade by declaring that she knows there is no point to it because her father will not be moved to change his perspective at all. She says that he was the only one she ever fully trusted and is now “done for.” Atticus responds that he has killed her and that he “had to.” Jean Louise does not understand this statement and declares that she despises him. She is only enraged further when he responds that he loves her. Jean Louise tells him she is leaving and never wants to see or hear from anyone in the family ever again. Atticus’s blasé response, “As you please” (253), infuriates her because it dismisses the severity of the situation and the destruction of her worldview. When she responds in anger, he simply tells her, “That’ll do” (253). Jean Louise is heartbroken by the phrase she grew up with as his “general call to order” and prays to be taken away from there (253).
Part 6, Chapters 15-17 Analysis
Jean Louise’s recollection of her childhood dance not only gives greater context to her relationships with Jem and Hank, but also foreshadows the events to come. When Jean Louise is embarrassed, her knee-jerk reaction is to run away from the dance. However, Hank refuses to let her run and forces her to return to the party, which she ultimately appreciates. This incident foreshadows the events of Part 7, when Uncle Jack forces Jean Louise to return to the house and listen to his explanation before she leaves her family forever. Similarly, Jean Louise develops a crush on Hank during his gallant treatment of her during the dance, but she loses all attraction to him when he proposes to circumvent her wishes and tells her what to do—or what not to do—by insisting on taking the blame for the false breasts on the banner despite her own intentions to do so. This dynamic parallels Jean Louise’s change of heart between intending to marry Hank and her resolute refusal to do so in this section. It also foreshadows her dissolution of their relationship in Part 7.
Part 6 includes the climax of the story, in which Jean Louise confronts her father on his apparent racism, leading to her final disavowal of his views and intention to become permanently estranged. This conflict initially appears to be about their opposing views on race in the same way that the Civil War was ostensibly about slavery and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education was ostensibly about desegregation. Jean Louise finally determines for herself that her feelings about the Supreme Court’s rulings were not about desegregation, but about the circumvention of states’ rights. This realization leads her to begin to understand that her conflict with her father is not truly about their differing sociopolitical views.
Jean Louise introduces the concept of inherent humanity in these chapters. She states that human beings of all races have equal humanity and proposes an equivalency between humanity, the soul, and hope. As part of this argument, she makes the bold claim that racists like her father are just as bad as Hitler because, while genocide killed the body, it did not attempt to kill the soul. Her argument that attacking someone’s hope is the same as attacking their humanity and soul introduces one of many fundamental points of disagreement between her and her father; while it is ineffective in changing her father’s mind, it provides a sharp contrast to her father’s Jeffersonian view that inherent humanity does not equate to the right to vote or hope for a better future.
Part 6 also delves into the concept of bigotry and the false equivalency of prejudicial action and prejudicial belief. Historically, Jean Louise has connected these two directly. Where she sees a prejudicial action, she also sees a prejudicial belief, and vice versa. Given this point of view, her misunderstanding of her father’s beliefs becomes clearer. Since he has not acted in the manner she associates with prejudicial beliefs, she believed he was not prejudiced. Jean Louise also assumes that because she has learned something from her father, he has taught it to her by example. Her own internalized messages from her father’s guidance and behavior have been, at times, unrelated to his true beliefs and intentions. Similarly, when she sees Hank and Atticus engaging in prejudicial actions, she ascribes prejudicial beliefs. Hank tries to disconnect the two, explaining that he is a member of the council for practical reasons rather than out of ideological agreement, but Jean Louise refuses to accept his explanation. While she is finally able to accept that her father is racist as a result of his actions, she is not willing to accept that Hank’s participation in the same actions does not equate with racist ideology. At minimum, Jean Louise considers him complicit and condoning, which is sin enough for her to cut all ties to him.
Additionally, Part 6 clarifies differences in ethical philosophy among the characters. These differences lead to the interpersonal conflict and confusion. Hank passionately argues that motivations are what should be judged rather than actions:
I’m only trying to make you see beyond men’s acts to their motives. A man can appear to be a part of something not-so-good on its face, but don’t take it upon yourself to judge his unless you know his motives as well. A man can be boiling inside, but he knows a mild answer works better than showing his rage. A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them. I said sometimes we have to do [things we don’t want to] (230).
Jean Louise refuses to pardon his behavior on the basis of what he claims his intentions are. She insists that actions are inherently good or bad. Such differences in philosophies create an irreconcilable conflict that ends their relationship.
