Harper Lee Killed a Mockingbird

In her masterpiece of a novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee made it quite clear that killing a mockingbird is a sin. It's the central motif/theme of the story and, as you can quite easily guess, is the reason for her title.

Further explanations not necessary.

Mockingbirds are just innocent creatures who simply mind their own business. Anyone who would kill one gets joy out of stripping innocence away from the few that possess it. In the context of To Kill A Mockingbird, Robert E. Lee (I guess that's a good indication of character) Ewell is the vile soul capable of committing such a crime. He forces his daughter to lie, so that Tom Robinson, a helpful man who had the misfortune (in deeply racist Maycomb) to be born black. This sadly results in Tom's death. Also, later on, when Ewell is dissatisfied with how people treat him, he goes after Scout and Jem, as he sees their father, Atticus, as the one responsible. Scout goes unharmed, but Jem's arm is broken and Boo Radley is forced away from his seclusion to see that Ewell no longer poses a threat to anybody. In short, Ewell is one evil son of the stars and bars.

Only by remote association do I place Harper Lee in the same category. She may not be the dirty underhanded coyote Ewell is, but she did (symbolically, of course) commit the same crime. Yes, Harper Lee has killed herself a mockingbird. By which I mean, she decided to reach into the far past after declaring she would not publish another book and pull out Go Set a Watchman--essentially a rough draft of To Kill a Mockingbird.

While I suppose that's a whole lot better than having her laundry list published, which was a very slight possibility in the afterglow of her novel's fantastic success, it holds a massive disregard for her earlier work and those involved in making it "our national novel" (Oprah Winfrey). Chief mockingbird sinned against is Tay Hohoff, the editor who took Harper Lee under her wing and helped transform her original manuscript (Watchman) into an unquestionable work of art (Mockingbird). This could be construed as an insult to her editor, and possibly says that she didn't need any "interference" in her work.

How am I supposed to tell them I killed a mockingbird?

Mockingbird number two is a little more obvious--Atticus Finch. From the safe confines of To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus has done nothing but provide a wonderful example to the people fortunate enough to read the book. He showed that integrity and honesty exist even in the worst of places, the highly racist "Deep South" of the 1930s. Not many men would be capable of putting forth a genuine effort to defend a black man in court against a white man under such conditions. As a result, "parents named their children after Atticus [and] people went to law school and became lawyers because of [him]" (Kakutani, NY Times). I have to think that if Mr. Finch were known to spout some negative and potentially racist commentary (as he does in Watchman), then there would be quite a few less guys carrying the name of Atticus around. 

For one thing, Watchman is a tale of disillusionment, and those are a dime a dozen, Unless you happen to be one of them lucky mockingbirds, you will be disillusioned at some point in your life. That doesn't mean the story should be published. 

Lastly, another mockingbird who fell victim to the new novel's release is Ms. Lee herself. She went back on her declarations of not publishing anything and sold out. One has to think a greedy agent convinced her it was a good idea. The name, Harper Lee, would guarantee sales (and sold it has). 

The question needs to be asked. Was it worth it?