Where is Finch's Landing? Rereading To Kill A Mockingbird As Moral Pedagogy

What does the impossible location of Finch's Landing tell us about the moral pedagogy of To Kill a Mockingbird? Rejecting the claim that the novel calls for us to place ourselves in another's shoes, I argue that it actually exposes the weakness of this mechanism as a resource for moral action. Instead, the novel seeks to demonstrate that such action requires a kind of engaged critical reflection, one called for by a text that makes far more significant demands on the reader than many have recognized. The location of Finch's Landing is the key to understanding the whole text. Seriously.