There's just one thing I find wrong about this great film.

Finch avoided committing a greater wrong--as Tate said, and Scout affirmed, to push Radley out in the open would indeed be a sin.

But it was the right thing to do. The sheriff has the legal right to charge someone with a crime if he chooses to do so. Ewell was killed by someone, but that someone acted to defend others. But to bring this out in the open would have done the person who did this would have done him harm. That would be worse than hiding how Ewell was really killed.

Boo Radley was freed in more ways than one that night.

There was no reason for Harper Lee's story to continue with a trail for Mr. Radley. And she left you (and all of us) with something to discuss.

Thus began our longest journey together


Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives.

One time Atticus said you never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them; just standin' on the Radley porch was enough. The summer that had begun so long ago had ended, and another summer had taken its place, and a fall, and Boo Radley had come out.


I was to think of these days many times. Of Jem, and Dill, and Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson, and Atticus. He would be in Jem's room all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.



That is the final.






Ephemeron.

Just finished watching this 1962 film for the first time 53 years after its release. Beautiful film.

My take on this scene is that Finch assumes one of the 2 scenarios which is his son did it in self-defense. Tate highlights the other and more plausible scenario which is Boo Radley as a citizen protecting Jem against the attack.

Both scenarios are not in the wrong and would not make the perpetrator guilty.

However if that more possible scenario is out in the open, Radley now becomes a hero, and both realize and agree it would be doing him more harm due to his recluse.

Hence the 'Ewell fell on his knife and killed himself' suggestion, which Finch hesitantly agrees with, for the benefit of Boo Radley.

Great question.

I think it's consistent with the underpinnings of the whole story - what's legal, what's just, what's a sin. Atticus is devoted to law and justice, but sometimes those two are in conflict.

His final decision closes the circle on the sin we heard about in the beginning: killing a mockingbird. Not illegal, not out of keeping with black-letter justice. But in the human sense, a great wrong.

Judicial and extrajudicial judgment are weighed against each other constantly throughout the story - and the pitfalls of the extrajudicial, with the killing of Tom. People outside the court system meting out their own "justice" can be very, very dangerous, as far from real justice as you can get.

That sets up the final scene, when Atticus has to confront whether extrajudicial justice is something he's willing to opt for - whether it's possible for him to perceive as the greater justice.

He's at his weakest point - completely shaken, can't even remember his son's age. This edifice of a man who even keeps it together when evil on two legs spits in his face has reached a breaking point. He's trying to rebalance himself with what he's always relied on: he's piecing together phrases about courts and laws and procedures. It's not helping. They sound alien, cold, useless.

Then Heck - who's been good, calm, and decent throughout - urges him to look away from that legal machinery long enough to consider that the greater good might in fact be served outside it. Atticus well knows the perils of that, but he's capable of thinking outside the binary. (In fact, that's consistent with what we've seen of him all along, too. He endorses honesty, but he's willing to throw a line of blarney about roses and gardens to placate an angry old lady. Which serves the greater good?) He's taught Scout everything, he imbued her with his own goodness, and now she reminds him that to kill a mockingbird is a sin. Dragging Arthur into the light for defending children from evil would compound the evil.

I can see where all this can be viewed as selling out. But I think that would be more consistent with a story that touted black-letter law as the ultimate justice that must be adhered to. But that would be a different movie.

Instead, the last scene brings together all the forms of justice that have been presented, showing that Right and Wrong are an immensely complex proposition, and even strong, solid Atticus sees it as - not an easy choice, not a clean and simple choice - but the choice for the greater good.

_______________

Nothing to see here, move along.

"Two wrongs make a right" What wrong? They didnt plan to murder Ewell. Even if they went to court, no one would have been charged because, like atticus says, clear cut defense case. Ewell's family would have received flak and gets Boo to the limelight.

So, what purpose does it serve?

B. Radley was trying to protect Atticus's kids from Ewell. Ewell broke the son's arm and was going to harm Scout, so he killed Ewell. Good for him! Great movie.

It was unethical, yes.