HuffPoster: Atticus Finch A Feminized Male 'Not In Any Traditional Sense Manly'

Newsbusters ^ | 11 July 2010 | Noel Sheppard

[GOP_Raider]

Did you ever consider the lead character in Harper Lee's fabulous "To Kill A Mockingbird" to be a feminized male not in any traditional sense manly?

Atticus Finch, one of the greatest male figures in modern American literature?

Well, that's what Jesse Kornbluth wrote at Huffington Post on the 50th anniversary of this fabulous book being published.

For those that are fans of this novel like so many Americans, the following quotes from this astonishingly silly piece are guaranteed to offend:

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a woman's book.

Written by a woman, Harper Lee, but more, written by a woman who dared to see herself as her region's Jane Austen. Told by a six-year-old girl. With a hero who's not, in any traditional sense, manly.

[tlb]

I take it your medications ran out yesterday ?

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

That Huffington Post writer has just demonstrated ignorance of the South and the southern upper classes.

To explain, the southern upper classes dominated their culture not by money alone, but by strength of character, coupled with a strong sense of diplomacy, interdependence and order. Their households were strictly patriarchal or matriarchal, and they did not respect or tolerate bad behavior.

Both Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Mark Twain described this strength of character, as well as the culture and language unique to the region, though Twain is the far more accessible to the modern reader. (Rawlings works are linguistic masterpieces, however, and are an essential study for anyone who hopes to understand southern culture.)

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there is a scene which dominates the book, in which an upper class gentleman, Colonel Sherburn, kills an offensive and belligerent drunk, then singly faces down a lynch mob while armed with a rifle. He then derisively sneers about the ‘essential cowardice of “Southern justice” ‘ as the mob slinks away.

Harper Lee would have been very aware of such characters when writing TKAM. As such, the polite and sometimes not-so-polite disdain that Atticus Finch holds for the lower classes is obvious. He will not stand for their antics. This also gives him considerable moral authority as a defense attorney—nobody in authority is going to mess with him. Another good reason to point out that he is a deadly shot.

Those unfamiliar with the distinct class differences of the South do not grasp the cultural chasm that exists between the classes, even today, so apply their caricatures of southerners far too broadly.

A real Atticus Finch would be a person of respect, and though it is unlikely that he would gun you down under most circumstances, if you made yourself a fool in front of him, you would be well advised to get out of town.

And as far as feminization goes, if you improperly make a fool of yourself in front of an upper class southern woman, this could be considerably worse, and you just might end up being escorted out of town.

[ckilmer]

nope.

Its just annoying to consider that people remember the image rather than the reality to the injury of all they love.

[Larry Lucido]

Thanks for mentioning Rawlings. Never heard of that author but I’ll look up that name.

[Larry Lucido]

Please, Newsbusted is a horrible environment to try to read an article. Let’s read it here. Not on excerpt list.

*****************

Did you ever consider the lead character in Harper Lee’s fabulous “To Kill A Mockingbird” to be a feminized male not in any traditional sense manly?

Atticus Finch, one of the greatest male figures in modern American literature?

Well, that’s what Jesse Kornbluth wrote at Huffington Post on the 50th anniversary of this fabulous book being published.

For those that are fans of this novel like so many Americans, the following quotes from this astonishingly silly piece [1] are guaranteed to offend:

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is a woman’s book.

Written by a woman, Harper Lee, but more, written by a woman who dared to see herself as her region’s Jane Austen. Told by a six-year-old girl. With a hero who’s not, in any traditional sense, manly.

Not in a traditional sense manly?

According to the town sheriff, he’s the best marksman in the county. This is said after this “feminized man” protects his family by shooting a mad dog approaching their home.

In another pivotal scene, this “feminized man” stands face to face with the drunken antagonist that’s just verbally assaulted him. When he gets back in his car, he comforts his scared son by saying that he shouldn’t worry — the guy’s all bluff.

Maybe most importantly, despite the likelihood that he and his family would be publicly condemned for his decision to defend a black man accused of rape, this “feminized man” takes the case.

When questioned by his daughter about his decision to do so, this “feminized man” tells her that if he didn’t, not only couldn’t he hold is head up in town, but he could never tell her or her brother what to do in the future.

Yet, according to Kornbluth, these are all feminine qualities:

And one more female value, once common in the heroes of Western movies, but less and less common by the time Harper Lee wrote her novel -— a willingness to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. Readers often forget, but this is the foundation of the character of Atticus Finch: He takes on the legal defense of an African-American, knowing he can’t prevail in court. [...]

I’m not one for stereotyping, but how many men do you know who step up to confront unpleasantness and conflict?

Actually, most of the men I respect. If stepping up to confront unpleasantness and conflict is a female trait, then America was built by a lot of “feminized men”:

Atticus Finch is -— let’s just say it -— a feminized man who appeared a decade before America started hearing about feminism.

Nonsense. Atticus Finch is a paragon of strength and virtue that many American men have looked up to for 50 years...including me!

Readers are advised that it has been forty years since I read this book, and I am at this time much more familiar with the fabulous film which I believe to be one of the finest movies ever made. With this in mind, if I have depicted scenes here that were in the film and not the novel, please accept my apology.

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Source URL:

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

If you want to enjoy Rawlings, I would highly recommend the reference book, Whistlin’ Dixie: A Dictionary of Southern Expressions, by Robert Hendrickson. This is because Rawlings works are packed with regional southeast idioms as well as more general southern expressions that are archaic.

I would recommend that book on its own, as well. I am familiar with one of the regional southern dialects, and was impressed at how alien even adjacent southern idioms sounded to me.

In the mid-1960s I was introduced to a master of American language, who could chat with a person for a minute or so, and tell from their language where they had been raised in the US to within 50 miles. He was also clear that within just a year or two, the American tongue was becoming so homogeneous that he would no longer be able to do this. But it left a lasting impression.

[mockingbyrd]

You’re missing the point of the book. But you seem to not want to see it.

[JimRed]

...but Liberal women often look like men males.

Small edit.

[GOP_Raider]

Didn’t realize Newsbusters wasn’t on the excerpt list. I excerpt every article I post just to be on the safe side. Thanks for posting the article in its entirety.

[ckilmer]

False.

Very often the Satan surrounds the lie with an armor guard of truth.

To Kill a Mockingbird depends on an injustice at its center. That injustice is that a black man has been falsely accused of rape.

That’s the story line.

The reality is that most cases of interracial rape are black on white.

The southerners especially knew this. It was true then. Its true today in all parts of the country.

[skeptoid]

Go to the link.

He looks male, his writing sounds like he's a guy, and he calls himself .. . .

I'm going with male (and hoping he's not a transvestite).

[wardaddy]

The book beat the movie.

looking at the movie now I see if as propaganda though I know for many here it’s akin to the Bible...maybe even more important for some

so be it

the charictature of the racists and the techniques in filming seem to me now as an adult of 53 years who was raised as aboy in that precise time in that precise locale..almost.. to be hamfisted messaging...not quite Mississippi Burning or Grisham to film but a prelude to that

I’m done with all that...it has lead to worse shite than it griped about then

[wardaddy]

I’m with you mostly. I’m from Mississippi....now Franklin TN...very safe..not terribly diverse and the diversity part have held up dignity wise...like it was when I was a boy

I was just home to Jackson and I cannot go to my old neighborhood and get out of my car and show my wife and kids around without a strong risk of being car jacked, robbed, possibly killed and my lovely wife raped by a gang of black drooges

all just because we are white

is that preferable to segregation?

it’s a question worth asking to those of us living it

the high and mighty here in whitelandia can preen all they like...they aren’t at risk and they are ignorant...well meaning and self righteous but just uninformed and naive

TKAMB...no matter how sweet and how well Peck crafted his role was still a piece of subtle propaganda which perpetuated a stereotype of working class whites just as easily as it promoted equality for blacks

hell it made me cry as a kid...not now...how far we have declined since then is far more tear worthy

[wardaddy]

White on black rape is almost un recordable. Extremely rare.

[Larry Lucido]

They are a good site. I just hate tripping over Mark Levin’s bald-headed popup every time I try to enter, lol!

[allmendream]

The reality is that in most cases where a young black man was murdered, the perpetrator was a black man.

Does this in any way imply that a young black man unjustly accused of killing another black man in fiction is unrealistic? Because black people predominantly kill other black people, no black man can reasonably be held to be innocent if charged?

Is that what passes for logic in your parts?

Often consensual interracial sex ‘back in the day’ would become, if discovered, “rape” after the fact. For this reason Chuck Berry would take a picture of a smiling topless white woman before indulging in consensual sexual activity with them; so it was that much harder to claim that anything that happened afterward was somehow unwanted.

There is also the fact that one might well be falsely accused, i.e. someone else did it. Interracial identity line ups are notoriously inaccurate. Now that there is DNA evidence this is less of a problem; but they are sure clearing up a lot of cases where the ‘guilty’ party couldn't have possibly been the actual perpetrator.

While you seem fixated upon the “fact” that most interracial rapes are black on white; most rapes (like murders) are within the same racial group; and there ARE and HAVE been those who have been falsely accused.

“TKMB” is a novel that explores racial tensions, and a man doing the right thing even when it costs him. It in no way seeks to establish that no black man ever did rape a white woman; or that any who were accused were innocent; any more than every Perry Mason episode sought to establish that the person charged was NEVER guilty, but you could always get the actual guilty party to admit it in court.

[Larry Lucido]

travis; mcgee

Well, I'll be darned. We actually have a Travis, and a Mcgee!

[wardaddy]

whoops...i am nothing if not detail oriented eh?

[ckilmer]

The reality is that in most cases where a young black man was murdered, the perpetrator was a black man.

This is true.

Does this in any way imply that a young black man unjustly accused of killing another black man in fiction is unrealistic?

No. This story reflects reality. Its also true that black men typically kill black men and white men typically kill white men.

Because black people predominantly kill other black people, no black man can reasonably be held to be innocent if charged?

Let's run that in reverse. Because white men predominantly kill other white men, no white men can reasonably be held to be innocent if charged. This argument is called reductio ad absurdum. Good for ignorant evil democrats

Is that what passes for logic in your parts?

Mere sophistry won't buy you lunch around here. Its the problem with most colleges these days. They teach rhetoric without teaching either morals or logic.

Harper Lee played the same slight of hand that Joseph Conrad did in the Heart of Darkness. Conrad was in the belgian congo in the 1880's then returned to England where in 1891 he heard about the English foray into the Benin--modern day Nigeria-- where the the Brits reported massive cases of human sacrifice. Conrad then wrote Heart of Darkness in which he imputed to Kurtz what was done in the Kingdom of Benin by the Beninese. Here look it up yourself in google under Benin human sacrifice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice Here's a google search of Joseph Conrad Benin Today you will read in British newspapers about nigerians turning up mutilated in London who are victims of human sacrifice. Nigerian Episcopals have broken with the English episcopal church because they know something about evil.

Educate yourself because right now you are what the communists used to call a useful idiot. You cannot serve even the people you think you are serving as you are now. Rather you injure them to death.

[allmendream]

It was quite easy to reduce your argument to the absurd, because your argument IS absurd. I also found it completely lacking in either morality or logic.

Please explain the point you are attempting to make with your reference to “The Heart of Darkness”? Because to me it seems further absurd and illogical and immoral guilt by (racial) association.

The useful idiocy I see here is you attempting to divide people by race rather than accepting the full humanity and personal and individual responsibility of all people.

Racial factions are the bread and butter of socialist kleptocracy; they have no place in a free and individualistic society.

Please educate yourself on “the Socialist roots of Antisemitism”; it is applicable to racism of all sorts.

http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=359

“Capitalism and the market economy encourage racial, ethnic, and religious tolerance, while supporting a plurality of diverse lifestyles and customs. Heavily regulated or socialist economies, in contrast, tend to breed intolerance and ethnic persecution. Socialism leads to low rates of economic growth, disputes over resource use, and concentrated political power-all conditions which encourage conflict rather than cooperation. Ethnic and religious minorities usually do poorly when political coercion is prevalent. Economic collapses—usually associated with interventionism—worsen the problem by unleashing the destructive psychological forces of envy and resentment, which feed prejudice and persecution.”