May I suggest that the function of Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird is to illustrate that the free mind of a child is the equivalent of a perpetual-motion machine, which has been designed to spin until an answer has been found for any question a kid can ask? By “free mind,” I mean a mind that is not encumbered by dishonesty, by domestic strife or contention, or by illness.
If it weren’t for Atticus Finch, however, Scout and her cohort would have suffered fates similar to the characters in Lord of the Flies. The Englishman William Golding’s book was published in 1954, three years before Harper Lee completed Go Set a Watchman.
Kids are curious at birth – otherwise, they cannot learn to say “Uncle Dave,” they cannot learn to stand on their own two feet, and they cannot learn to divide a pb & j on the diagonal! For those reasons, at least, it must be job #1 of every parent, sibling, relative, and freelance boss to keep kids’ minds curious, and free of dishonesty, domestic strife or contention, and illness.
This is my understanding of what the wonderful Ms. Harper Lee has given us. Now, I am eager to be schooled by our little book club family, because I always overlook important stuff and I sometimes misinterpret personal behavior! My dream is to see everybody’s own testimonial on these books. E-mail them to me and I will post them here.
(E-mail is the least annoying way to be available, and even so, we must spell it out, lest the bastards slurp it up with a bot: dcread at gmail dot com.)
We’re in no hurry; there’s no need to comment now on what you just read. What you just read has just landed in your imagination, which takes its own time before it decides where to file what you just read, or whether to even keep it onboard!
We’ve seen what happens with instantaneous publication via “social media.” Not only does it pollute the political discussion, but mean boys and mean girls use it to drive each other to suicide – to fates worse than what William Golding warned against!