Go Set a Watchman characters

Also known as Scout

Appears from the start

A twenty-six-year-old Maycomb native who now lives in New York and returns to Alabama for her annual visit. Known to her family as Scout, she is independent, blunt, and still measures her hometown against the moral example she believes her father has always set.

Appears from the start

Jean Louise's seventy-two-year-old father, a lawyer and former state legislator troubled by arthritis. She regards his fairness and self-command as the fixed moral center of her life.

Also known as Hank

Appears from the start

Atticus's young law partner and Jean Louise's persistent suitor. A childhood friend who made his own way after an insecure upbringing, he hopes she will leave New York, marry him, and settle in Maycomb.

Also known as Aunt Alexandra

Appears from the start

Atticus's sister, who has moved into the Finch home to manage it as his health declines. Conventional and forceful, she disapproves of Jean Louise's clothes, manners, and resistance to Maycomb's expectations for women of her family.

Also known as Uncle Jack

First appears in chapter 2

Atticus and Alexandra's brother, a physician with an eccentric, combative manner and a habit of making Jean Louise work out his meaning. She trusts him as another link to the standards on which she was raised.

Also known as Jem

Appears from the start

Jean Louise's older brother, who died suddenly before the events of the novel. Her memories of their childhood make his absence a continuing presence in the Finch family and deepen her sense that the Maycomb she knew has vanished.

First appears in chapter 3

The Black woman who raised Jean Louise and Jem in the Finch household. Now retired and living among her own family, she occupies a maternal place in Jean Louise's memory, though the racial order of Maycomb complicates their reunion.

Also known as Dill

First appears in chapter 5

Jean Louise and Jem's imaginative childhood friend, remembered in episodes from the summers when the three were inseparable. He later went away, leaving Henry to become Jem's closest local companion.

First appears in chapter 9

Calpurnia's grandson, whose serious legal trouble brings Jean Louise back into contact with Calpurnia's family. Atticus agrees to become involved in the case.

First appears in chapter 11

A racist speaker invited to address Maycomb's local citizens' council. His appearance in the courthouse exposes Jean Louise to organized views she finds abhorrent.