Does Aaron Sorkin's Script Depart from the Spirit of To Kill a Mockingbird?

It may have seemed like a stroke of genius when Aaron Sorkin was retained to adapt To Kill a Mockingbird for the Broadway stage, but the result has been an acrimonious lawsuit that may prevent the play from ever reaching opening night.  The estate of the late Harper Lee, who died eight months after executing a contract with the theater company Rudinplay, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to prevent the production from going forward under Sorkin’s script, claiming that it impermissibly “derogates or departs from the spirit of the novel” in violation of the contract.

The crux of the dispute seems to be Sorkin’s nuanced portrayal of Atticus Finch.  As reported in the New York Times, the script presents Atticus “as a man who begins the drama as a naïve apologist for the racial status quo,” but whose attitudes evolve over the course of the play. As Sorkin explained in an interview, “He becomes Atticus Finch by the end of the play, and while he’s going along, he has a kind of running argument with Calpurnia, the housekeeper. . . . He is in denial about his neighbors and his friends and the world around him, that it is as racist as it is.”

It is evidently the addition of what playwrights call a “character journey” that most rankled Tonja Carter, who, as Lee’s long-time lawyer and the executor of her estate, initiated the lawsuit. According to the complaint, Sorkin’s depiction of Atticus – and his slow recognition of racism – diminishes his status as an “iconic character” and “a model of wisdom, integrity, and professionalism.” The guardian of Lee’s legacy apparently insists that Atticus must be regarded as heroically righteous from beginning to end.

But that is only one way to look at To Kill a Mockingbird, and it turns out that Sorkin’s script may be more true to the novel than the lawsuit allows.  For example, Atticus was initially conflicted about representing Tom Robinson. “I’d hoped to get through life without a case of this kind,” he said, but the judge “pointed at me and said, ‘You’re it.’” Thus, the complaint is, at the least, misleading by omission when it says that Atticus “took on a representation that was unpopular in his community,” given that he actually had no choice and would have preferred to avoid it.  In any event, it is fair for Sorkin to interpret Atticus's initial hesitation as reluctance to disturb the prevailing racial order.

As to racism, Atticus indeed insisted on providing a zealous defense to the accused, without regard to color, but he did not otherwise object to the Jim Crow laws that dominated life in Maycomb.  In fact, he served in the state legislature -- both before and after the Robinson trial -- and did not, as far as we are ever told, take any steps to end the social, political, and economic discrimination that confronted Alabama’s African Americans.  When neighbors used the N-word around his children, Atticus brushed it off simply as “common” or vulgar. He said it’s “just one of those terms that don’t mean anything,” rather than explain its impact on Black people.  When Scout heard that neighbors objected – again using the N-word – to Atticus’s defense of an accused Black man, he replied, “They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions.”  In other words, he was in “denial about his neighbors and friends,” just as Sorkin describes him.

Atticus attributed racism to “trashy” and “poor” people, while absolving the “fine folks” of his own social class, even though they were the major beneficiaries of the exploitive economic system.  He called the KKK a harmless “political organization” and he did not think it had been dangerous when they paraded in their robes in front of Sam Levy’s house.

This is not to minimize Atticus’s noble actions. He thwarted a lynch mob and provided the best defense possible for Tom Robinson. That took courage, and it was probably the most anyone could have done under the circumstances, but it is not the whole story. 

As we now know, Harper Lee’s first draft – Go Set a Watchman, set in the 1950s – portrayed Atticus as a bigoted member of the White Citizens’ Council who was deeply opposed to school desegregation. A close reading shows that vestiges of that persona remained when the draft was revised and published as To Kill a Mockingbird.

Thus, Sorkin was definitely on to something when he saw the opportunity to find some complexity in Atticus’s character.  Every upper class member of the state legislature was complicit in Alabama’s racist political system in the 1930s, and To Kill a Mockingbird itself provides numerous instances of Atticus’s unquestioning acceptance of the local social structure.  He was determined to seek justice in an individual case, but he never once challenged the broader pillars of racial subjugation.

In the years since it was first published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird has become a staple of adolescent education, now assigned in most high schools, and even in some middle schools.  Sorkin evidently sought to adapt the book for an adult audience by tracing the protagonist's moral development. It does not demean or derogate Atticus to show him rising above his background and circumstances when confronted by the greater evils of bigotry in the course of defending Tom Robinson. In fact, his willingness to change makes Atticus even more heroic, which is definitely within the “spirit of the novel.”

Comments

[Howard Wasserman]

I always saw a difference in the portrayal of Atticus in the book as opposed to the film--the latter is what most people remember and Atticus is less complicated.

I do have to ask though: In Sorkin's oplay, when Mayella Ewell is on the stand, will she tell Atticus that he can't handle the truth?

[Steve L.]

Excellent question, Howard. The script has not been made public and the Complaint refers only to comments that Sorkin made in interviews. In addition, there is a letter from Lee's representative to the production company outlining the alleged derogations in the script, but it was filed under seal.

We also don't know whether the play will feature people conversing in clipped terms as they walk quickly from one location to another. Like this: https://youtu.be/il-DowDFDo4

[Madame Tussaud]

If the estate wanted to keep Atticus saintly, why did they approve publishing Go Set a Watchman, which completely tarnishes his character, making him into a bigot? You can't simultaneously have Saint-Atticus and Racist-Atticus, so logically Sorkin's approach is the only one that makes any sense.