“Go, set a watchman” is taken from Isaiah 21:6. It tells the people of Israel to post a lookout to let them know what is happening so they might be prepared for what comes next. In Chapter 13, the local preacher recites this verse. When Jean Louise becomes disillusioned by her father’s racism and questions her perception of the world, she states that she needs her own watchman to explain to her what is really happening and what people really feel:

I need a watchman to lead me around and declare what he seeth every hour on the hour. I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference. I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is (182).

Despite her wishes that someone with a more reliable ability to perceive the world around her could take away her responsibility to make sense of the world and find a place for herself in it, Uncle Jack explains that this is not possible.