Uncle Jack condemns the New Jersey man’s advice as yet another example of the North trying to force its agenda onto the South. Jemson willingly agrees with Jack that the New Jersey man was “sort of a sissy” and that he won’t try to incorporate the man’s advice into their church’s music any longer.
Analysis
Minister Stone’s choice of Isaiah 21 as a sermon text is significant because it serves as the source of the book’s title. However, the importance of the phrase “go set a watchman” within the novel does not become clear until much later. The brief excerpts of Stone’s sermon provided in the text simply serve to reiterate the tendency of religion to function as a way of regulating propriety. Using a technique common in the novel, Lee splices two unconnected thoughts together with an ellipsis to provide fresh insight on what is being said: “a Christian can rid himself of the frustrations of modern living by…coming to Family Night every Wednesday and bringing a covered dish.”
Despite Jean Louise’s general disinterest in and skepticism of religion, she still fiercely protects her church’s musical traditions. She has already observed several times to Hank that change is difficult for her. Yet Jean Louise does not object to the new music as vehemently as Uncle Jack, for whom the New Jersey man’s attempt to change Southern music is tantamount to a Northern attack on the Southern way of life.
Uncle Jack’s objection to Northern musical influence also becomes a subtle reference to racial tensions when he compares the new Doxology to the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling: “Apparently our brethren in the Northland are not content merely with the Supreme Court’s activities. They are now trying to change our hymns on us.” His reaction to what he perceives as unreasonable Northern influence over the South provides insight into how he might perceive the legal battles over race relations at that time.
The seemingly insignificant conflict over the Doxology, then, becomes important to the story because it represents larger societal issues. The musical issue functions as a kind of synecdoche (a part of something that represents the whole), symbolically pointing to every issue that well-established Southerners feel Northern influence has intruded upon. Racial equality is by no means the only issue at stake here, but it is the issue that will become most important to the story and to Jean Louise.
