TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

BY HARPER LEE
Contents
Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 2
Character List .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Themes ................................................................................................................................................ 6
Protagonist ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Antagonist ............................................................................................................................................. 11
Setting ................................................................................................................................................... 12
Motifs/ Themes ..................................................................................................................................... 13
Symbols ................................................................................................................................................. 14
Genre .................................................................................................................................................... 15
Allusions ................................................................................................................................................ 16
Writing style .......................................................................................................................................... 18
Point of View ......................................................................................................................................... 19
Tone ...................................................................................................................................................... 21
Foreshadowing...................................................................................................................................... 22
Key info – Summarized ......................................................................................................................... 24
What Does the Ending Mean? .............................................................................................................. 26
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ....................................................................................................................... 27
Summary
Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, in
the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the
Great Depression, but Atticus is a prominent lawyer, and the Finch family is
reasonably well off in comparison to the rest of society. One summer, Jem and
Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has come to live in their neighbourhood
for the summer, and the trio acts out stories together. Eventually, Dill becomes
fascinated with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place. The
house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother, Arthur (nicknamed
Boo), has lived there for years without venturing outside.
Scout goes to school for the first time that fall and detests it. She and Jem find
gifts apparently left for them in a knothole of a tree on the Radley property.
Dill returns the following summer, and he, Scout, and Jem begin to act out the
story of Boo Radley. Atticus puts a stop to their antics, urging the children to
try to see life from another person’s perspective before making judgments.
But, on Dill’s last night in Maycomb for the summer, the three sneak onto the
Radley property, where Nathan Radley shoots at them. Jem loses his pants in
the ensuing escape. When he returns for them, he finds them mended and
hung over the fence. The next winter, Jem and Scout find more presents in the
tree, presumably left by the mysterious Boo. Nathan Radley eventually plugs
the knothole with cement. Shortly thereafter, a fire breaks out in another
neighbor’s house, and during the fire someone slips a blanket on Scout’s
shoulders as she watches the blaze. Convinced that Boo did it, Jem tells Atticus
about the mended pants and the presents.
To the consternation of Maycomb’s racist white community, Atticus agrees to
defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a
white woman. Because of Atticus’s decision, Jem and Scout are subjected to
abuse from other children, even when they celebrate Christmas at the family
compound on Finch’s Landing. Calpurnia, the Finches’ black cook, takes them
to the local black church, where the warm and close-knit community largely
embraces the children.
Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, comes to live with the Finches the next summer.
Dill, who is supposed to live with his “new father” in another town, runs away
and comes to Maycomb. Tom Robinson’s trial begins, and when the accused
man is placed in the local jail, a mob gathers to lynch him. Atticus faces the
mob down the night before the trial. Jem and Scout, who have sneaked out of
the house, soon join him. Scout recognizes one of the men, and her polite
questioning about his son shames him into dispersing the mob.
At the trial itself, the children sit in the “coloured balcony” with the town’s
black citizens. Atticus provides clear evidence that the accusers, Mayella Ewell
and her father, Bob, are lying in fact, Mayella propositioned Tom Robinson,
was caught by her father, and then accused Tom of rape to cover her shame
and guilt. Atticus provides impressive evidence that the marks on Mayella’s
face are from wounds that her father inflicted; upon discovering her with Tom,
he called her a whore and beat her. Yet, despite the significant evidence
pointing to Tom’s innocence, the all-white jury convicts him. The innocent Tom
later tries to escape from prison and is shot to death. In the aftermath of the
trial, Jem’s faith in justice is badly shaken, and he lapses into despondency and
doubt.
Despite the verdict, Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the judge have made a
fool out of him, and he vows revenge. He menaces Tom Robinson’s widow,
tries to break into the judge’s house, and finally attacks Jem and Scout as they
walk home from a Halloween party. Boo Radley intervenes, however, saving
the children and stabbing Ewell fatally during the struggle. Boo carries the
wounded Jem back to Atticus’s house, where the sheriff, in order to protect
Boo, insists that Ewell tripped over a tree root and fell on his own knife. After
sitting with Scout for a while, Boo disappears once more into the Radley house.
Later, Scout feels as though she can finally imagine what life is like for Boo. He
has become a human being to her at last. With this realization, Scout embraces
her father’s advice to practice sympathy and understanding and demonstrates
that her experiences with hatred and prejudice will not sully her faith in human
goodness.
Character List
Scout Finch
The narrator and protagonist of the story. Jean Louise “Scout” Finch lives with
her father, Atticus, her brother, Jem, and their black cook, Calpurnia, in
Maycomb. She is intelligent and, by the standards of her time and place, a
tomboy. Scout has a combative streak and a basic faith in the goodness of the
people in her community. As the novel progresses, this faith is tested by the
hatred and prejudice that emerge during Tom Robinson’s trial. Scout
eventually develops a more grown-up perspective that enables her to
appreciate human goodness without ignoring human evil.

Jem Finch
Scout’s brother and constant playmate at the beginning of the story. Jeremy
Atticus “Jem” Finch is something of a typical American boy, refusing to back
down from dares and fantasizing about playing football. Four years older than
Scout, he gradually separates himself from her games, but he remains her
close companion and protector throughout the novel. Jem moves into
adolescence during the story, and his ideals are shaken badly by the evil and
injustice that he perceives during the trial of Tom Robinson.

Arthur “Boo” Radley

A recluse who never sets foot outside his house, Boo dominates the
imaginations of Jem, Scout, and Dill. He is a powerful symbol of goodness
swathed in an initial shroud of creepiness, leaving little presents for Scout and
Jem and emerging at an opportune moment to save the children. An intelligent
child emotionally damaged by his cruel father, Boo provides an example of the
threat that evil poses to innocence and goodness. He is one of the novel’s
“mockingbirds,” a good person injured by the evil of mankind.

Bob Ewell
A drunken, mostly unemployed member of Maycomb’s poorest family. In his
knowingly wrongful accusation that Tom Robinson raped his daughter, Ewell
represents the dark side of the South: ignorance, poverty, squalor, and hate-
filled racial prejudice.

Charles Baker “Dill” Harris

Jem and Scout’s summer neighbour and friend. Dill is a diminutive, confident
boy with an active imagination. He becomes fascinated with Boo Radley and
represents the perspective of childhood innocence throughout the novel.

Miss Maudie Atkinson

The Finches’ neighbour, a sharp-tongued widow, and an old friend of the
family. Miss Maudie is almost the same age as Atticus’s younger brother, Jack.
She shares Atticus’s passion for justice and is the children’s best friend among
Maycomb’s adults.

Calpurnia
The Finches’ black cook. Calpurnia is a stern disciplinarian and the children’s
bridge between the white world and her own black community.

Themes

The Coexistence of Good and Evil

The most important theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is the book’s exploration of
the moral nature of human beings—that is, whether people are essentially
good or essentially evil. The novel approaches this question by dramatizing
Scout and Jem’s transition from a perspective of childhood innocence, in which
they assume that people are good because they have never seen evil, to a
more adult perspective, in which they have confronted evil and must
incorporate it into their understanding of the world. As a result of this
portrayal of the transition from innocence to experience, one of the book’s
important subthemes involves the threat that hatred, prejudice, and ignorance
pose to the innocent: people such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are not
prepared for the evil that they encounter, and, as a result, they are destroyed.
Even Jem is victimized to an extent by his discovery of the evil of racism during
and after the trial. Whereas Scout is able to maintain her basic faith in human
nature despite Tom’s conviction, Jem’s faith in justice and in humanity is badly
damaged, and he retreats into a state of disillusionment.
The moral voice of To Kill a Mockingbird is embodied by Atticus Finch, who is
virtually unique in the novel in that he has experienced and understood evil
without losing his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Atticus
understands that, rather than being simply creatures of good or creatures of
evil, most people have both good and bad qualities. The important thing is to
appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating
others with sympathy and trying to see life from their perspective. He tries to
teach this ultimate moral lesson to Jem and Scout to show them that it is
possible to live with conscience without losing hope or becoming cynical. In
this way, Atticus is able to admire Mrs. Dubose’s courage even while deploring
her racism. Scout’s progress as a character in the novel is defined by her
gradual development toward understanding Atticus’s lessons, culminating
when, in the final chapters, Scout at last sees Boo Radley as a human being.
Her newfound ability to view the world from his perspective ensures that she
will not become jaded as she loses her innocence

The Importance of Moral Education

Because exploration of the novel’s larger moral questions takes place within
the perspective of children, the education of children is necessarily involved in
the development of all of the novel’s themes. In a sense, the plot of the story
charts Scout’s moral education, and the theme of how children are educated—
how they are taught to move from innocence to adulthood—recurs
throughout the novel (at the end of the book, Scout even says that she has
learned practically everything except algebra). This theme is explored most
powerfully through the relationship between Atticus and his children, as he
devotes himself to instilling a social conscience in Jem and Scout. The scenes at
school provide a direct counterpoint to Atticus’s effective education of his
children: Scout is frequently confronted with teachers who are either
frustratingly unsympathetic to children’s needs or morally hypocritical. As is
true of To Kill a Mockingbird’s other moral themes, the novel’s conclusion
about education is that the most important lessons are those of sympathy and
understanding, and that a sympathetic, understanding approach is the best
way to teach these lessons. In this way, Atticus’s ability to put himself in his
children’s shoes makes him an excellent teacher, while Miss Caroline’s rigid
commitment to the educational techniques that she learned in college makes
her ineffective and even dangerous.

The Existence of Social Inequality

Differences in social status are explored largely through the overcomplicated
social hierarchy of Maycomb, the ins and outs of which constantly baffle the
children. The relatively well-off Finches stand near the top of Maycomb’s social
hierarchy, with most of the townspeople beneath them. Ignorant country
farmers like the Cunninghams lie below the townspeople, and the white trash
Ewells rest below the Cunninghams. But the black community in Maycomb,
despite its abundance of admirable qualities, squats below even the Ewells,
enabling Bob Ewell to make up for his own lack of importance by persecuting
Tom Robinson. These rigid social divisions that make up so much of the adult
world are revealed in the book to be both irrational and destructive. For
example, Scout cannot understand why Aunt Alexandra refuses to let her
consort with young Walter Cunningham. Lee uses the children’s perplexity at
the unpleasant layering of Maycomb society to critique the role of class status
and, ultimately, prejudice in human interaction.

Prejudice
Discussions about prejudice in general, and racism in particular, are at the
heart of To Kill a Mockingbird. Conflicts over racism drive some of the most
compelling and memorable scenes in the novel. Racial conflict causes the two
dramatic deaths that occur in the story. On one level, To Kill a Mockingbird
represents a simplistic and moralistic view of racial prejudice. White people
who are racist are bad, and white people who are not racist are good. Atticus
risks his reputation, his position in the community, and ultimately the safety of
his children because he is not racist, and therefore good. Bob Ewell falsely
accuses a black man of rape, spits on Atticus publicly, and attempts to murder
a child because he is racist, and therefore bad. To Kill a Mockingbird does
attempt to look at some of the complexities of living in a racist society. Both
Scout and Jem confront everything from unpleasantness to murderous hostility
as they learn how their family’s resistance to racial prejudice has positioned
them against the community at large.
The treatment of prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird is not only simplistic in
terms of morality, but also in terms of perspective. To read the novel one
would think racism is a problem that exists between educated, financially
stable, moral white people, and ignorant, dirt poor, vicious white people. The
black characters in the novel are rarely given voice on the topic of racism.
When they do speak it is largely in terms of gratitude for the good white
people of town and not in terms of anger, frustration, resistance, or hostility
towards the culture of racism. When the author does present black characters
as trying to resist racist abuses, she shows them doing so by avoiding or
retreating, as when Tom Robinson attempts to escape from prison or when
Helen Robinson walks through the woods to avoid going past the Ewell house.
Black characters in the novel never respond to racism actively and barely
respond to it reactively. When a black character is critical of white people, as
when Lula challenges Calpurnia for bringing Jem and Scout to the black church,
she is ostracized by the rest of the black community, suggesting her complaints
against white people are unfounded.

Law
Though the trial of Tom Robinson takes up only about one tenth of the book, it
represents the narrative centre, around which the rest of the novel revolves.
This trial seems intended as an indictment of the legal system, at the least as it
exists of within the town of Maycomb. Procedurally, the judge carries out the
trial properly. The lawyers select the jury through normal means, and both the
defence and prosecution to make their cases. But the all-white jury does not
interpret the evidence according to the law, but rather applies their own
prejudices to determine the outcome of the case. Tom Robinson’s guilty
verdict exemplifies the limitations of the law and asks the reader to reconsider
the meaning of the word “fair” in the phrase “a fair trial.” While Atticus
understands that the legal system is flawed, he firmly believes in the legal
process. At the same time, Atticus believes the law should be applied
differently to different people. He explains to Scout that because she has a
good life full of opportunities, she should have to obey the law fully, but he
suggests that there are others who have much more difficult lives and far
fewer opportunities, and that there are times when it is just to let those people
break the law in small ways so that they are not overly harmed by the law’s
application.

Lying
There are two lies at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird. Mayella Ewell says that
Tom Robinson raped her, and Heck Tate says that Bob Ewell accidentally
stabbed himself. The first lie destroys an innocent man who occupies a
precarious social position in Maycomb because of his race. The second lie
prevents the destruction of an innocent man who occupies a precarious social
position in Maycomb because of his extreme reclusiveness. Taken together,
the two lies reflect how deception can be used to harm or to protect. The two
lies also reveal how the most vulnerable members of society can be the most
deeply affected by the stories people tell about them. Social status also
determines who is allowed to tell a lie. During the trial, prosecutor Horace
Gilmer confronts Tom Robinson, asking Tom if he is accusing Mayella Ewell of
lying. Even though Tom knows full well that Mayella is lying, he cannot say so
because in Maycomb the lies of a white woman carry more weight than the
truth told by a black man. Atticus, on the other hand, who is white, male, and
of a higher-class status than Mayella, can accuse her of lying when he suggests
that it was really Mayella’s father, not Tom, who beat her.

Protagonist
Scout is the most obvious choice of protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird. While
her decisions do not directly incite the action of the trial, other choices she
makes, such as to spy on Boo Radley, or to confront the men outside the jail,
determine the course of the novel. Atticus also tells Uncle Jack that he is
defending Tom Robinson because he wants to set a good example for Scout
and Jem, so in a sense Scout is indirectly responsible for the action around the
trial as well. Over the course of the novel, Scout matures from a child who
judges people based on their status, such as unsophisticated Walter
Cunningham or reclusive Boo Radley, to a more mature young woman who is
able to see the individual inside each person. At the end of the novel, Scout has
learned to see beyond her childish preconceptions about Boo Radley and
thinks about the world from his perspective. In some ways, the very end of the
novel is when Scout first steps into her own as a protagonist. Though Scout’s
simplicity and goodness make her an appealing protagonist, her perception of
racial issues remains simplistic and childish, which, while appropriate for the
character, can be less than satisfying for the reader.
Another choice for protagonist is Atticus, whose decision to defend Tom
Robinson incites the central action of the book and results in the death of two
characters. Throughout the book, Atticus’s goal is to raise his children to judge
people without prejudice in a town roiled by racism and intolerance. In pursuit
of this goal he takes on a case he knows he’s going to lose, in hopes of setting a
good example for his children. Thwarting Atticus in this goal is Bob Ewell and
other racist members of the community, as well as the flawed justice system
itself. As a character Atticus doesn’t change much over the course of the novel
– he is an idealistic, determined, and wise father at the beginning of the novel,
and ends with the same characteristics intact. However, Scout and Jem’s
perception of Atticus changes over the novel, as they see aspects of their
father they didn’t know about, such as the fact that he is an excellent
marksman, or that he is sympathetic to their cruel and racist neighbor, Mrs.
Dubose.

Antagonist
The social expectations of Maycomb, Alabama are the antagonist of To Kill a
Mockingbird. The community of Maycomb grows largely hostile to Atticus and
his children because Atticus has chosen to behave outside the expectations of
those around him to uphold the racist status quo. Even Tom Robinson’s guilty
verdict and eventual death are the result of Mayella Ewell’s decision to act
outside social expectations that she not become sexually involved with a black
man. Mayella would rather wrongfully accuse an innocent man of rape than
admit she made a sexual advance at someone outside her race. Scout runs into
conflict over her father’s expectations regarding how she should behave as a
daughter, her teacher’s expectations regarding how she should behave as a
student, her aunt’s expectations regarding how she should behave as a girl,
and Jem and Dill’s expectations regarding how she should behave as a friend.
Even though Maycomb serves in several ways as an antagonist to Scout, the
town is not an entirely villainous entity. Certainly, there are villainous, even
monstrous, aspects to the town, but Maycomb is also the tool by which Scout
is able to learn about the realities of the world. In her interactions with Boo
Radley, Mrs. Dubose, Calpurnia, and Walter Cunningham, among others, Scout
learns to empathize with those around her, even when their behaviour and
motivation seems strange to her. In struggling against the expectations of the
people in her community Scout learns to see other people’s perspectives. And
in going through the experience of the trial, Tom Robinson’s unfair conviction,
and eventual death, Scout witnesses first-hand the devastating effects of
racism. Although the town of Maycomb attempts to thwart Atticus’s goal of
raising his children free of prejudice, Atticus prevails, and teaches Scout and
Jem to question social expectations they believe are unjust.

Setting
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during 1933–1935.
These years place the events of the novel squarely within two important
periods of American history: the Great Depression and the Jim Crow era. The
Great Depression is reflected in the poverty that affects all the residents of
Maycomb. Even the Finches, who are objectively better off than many of the
other citizens in the area, are ultimately poor and living within the means
available to them. The years depicted in the novel also fall within the much
longer period that modern historians often refer to as the Jim Crow era. This
term describes the time from the late 19th century until the mid-1960s when
black people in the United States could no longer be held in slavery, but where
laws limited the social, political, and economic possibilities available to black
citizens. We should remember that when Harper Lee wrote the novel in the
late 1950s, the Great Depression was over, but Jim Crow laws were still
present in substantial portions of the American South.

The fictional town of Maycomb, in the fictional Maycomb County, seems

intended not to represent an exact location in the real world, but a kind of
small Southern town that existed in the 1930s. Scout describes the town as
old, tired, and suffocating. In addition to being literally appropriate, these
descriptions also apply to more subtle social aspects of the town. The town is
burdened, Atticus might say diseased, by social prejudices in general, and
racism in particular. Maycomb is also sharply geographically divided along class
lines. While more prosperous families like the Finches live in large houses close
to the centre of town, the Ewells live in a ramshackle cabin near the dump, out
of sight of the rest of the town except at Christmas, when people drive their
trees and trash to the dump. The only other dwellings in this area are the
cabins where black families live, an indication that the town is both racially and
economically segregated. The Ewells lack basic necessities like running water
and insulation, and they frequently forage in the dump for food. “Every town
the size of the Maycomb had families like the Ewells,” Scout says, implying that
the economic inequality is endemic to the region.

Motifs/ Themes
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to
develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Gothic Details
The forces of good and evil in To Kill a Mockingbird seem larger than the small
Southern town in which the story takes place. Lee adds drama and atmosphere
to her story by including a number of Gothic details in the setting and the plot.
In literature, the term Gothic refers to a style of fiction first popularized in
eighteenth-century England, featuring supernatural occurrences, gloomy and
haunted settings, full moons, and so on. Among the Gothic elements in To Kill a
Mockingbird are the unnatural snowfall, the fire that destroys Miss Maudie’s
house, the children’s superstitions about Boo Radley, the mad dog that Atticus
shoots, and the ominous night of the Halloween party on which Bob Ewell
attacks the children. These elements, out of place in the normally quiet,
predictable Maycomb, create tension in the novel and serve to foreshadow the
troublesome events of the trial and its aftermath.

Small-Town Life
Counterbalancing the Gothic motif of the story is the motif of old-fashioned,
small-town values, which manifest themselves throughout the novel. As if to
contrast with all of the suspense and moral grandeur of the book, Lee
emphasizes the slow-paced, good-natured feel of life in Maycomb. She often
deliberately juxtaposes small-town values and Gothic images in order to
examine more closely the forces of good and evil. The horror of the fire, for
instance, is mitigated by the comforting scene of the people of Maycomb
banding together to save Miss Maudie’s possessions. In contrast, Bob Ewell’s
cowardly attack on the defenceless Scout, who is dressed like a giant ham for
the school pageant, shows him to be unredeemable evil.

Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colours used to represent
abstract ideas or concepts.
Mockingbirds
The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very little literal connection to the plot,
but it carries a great deal of symbolic weight in the book. In this story of
innocents destroyed by evil, the “mockingbird” comes to represent the idea of
innocence. Thus, To Kill a Mockingbird is to destroy innocence. Throughout the
book, several characters (Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill, Boo Radley, Mr. Raymond)
can be identified as mockingbirds—innocents who have been injured or
destroyed through contact with evil. This connection between the novel’s title
and its main theme is made explicit several times in the novel: after Tom
Robinson is shot, Mr. Underwood compares his death to “the senseless
slaughter of songbirds,” and at the end of the book Scout thinks that hurting
Boo Radley would be like “shootin’ a mockingbird.” Most important, Miss
Maudie explains to Scout: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but . . . sing their
hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin To Kill a Mockingbird.” That Jem and
Scout’s last name is Finch (another type of small bird) indicates that they are
particularly vulnerable in the racist world of Maycomb, which often treats the
fragile innocence of childhood harshly.

Boo Radley
As the novel progresses, the children’s changing attitude toward Boo Radley is
an important measurement of their development from innocence toward a
grown-up moral perspective. At the beginning of the book, Boo is merely a
source of childhood superstition. As he leaves Jem and Scout presents and
mends Jem’s pants, he gradually becomes increasingly and intriguingly real to
them. At the end of the novel, he becomes fully human to Scout, illustrating
that she has developed into a sympathetic and understanding individual. Boo,
an intelligent child ruined by a cruel father, is one of the book’s most
important mockingbirds; he is also an important symbol of the good that exists
within people. Despite the pain that Boo has suffered, the purity of his heart
rules his interaction with the children. In saving Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell,
Boo proves the ultimate symbol of good.

Genre

Bildungsroman
To Kill a Mockingbird is a bildungsroman, in that it traces Scout’s development
from innocent child to aware member of her community through the
experience of witnessing Tom’s trial and being rescued by Boo Radley. A
bildungsroman, which means “novel of education” in German, describes one
character’s (often the narrator) passage from youth into adulthood. In a
bildungsroman, this character begins the book with little understanding of the
adult world. She faces a major challenge that tests her understanding of the
world and teaches her something important about the society she lives in. In
To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout learns about racism in her community and in the
legal system. While at the beginning of the book she believes that most people
in her community are fundamentally good, by the end of the book she has
seen violence and cruelty firsthand. As a result, she is wiser and more prepared
to enter society. Note that bildungsroman does not necessarily mean that the
main character is literally an adult by the end of the book. It only means that
the character faces a significant life challenge that brings her closer to an adult
understanding of the world. This is why To Kill a Mockingbird is a
bildungsroman, even though Scout is still a child when the book ends.

Allusions

Literary
‘Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with
eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fantasies.’ Chapter1
This is an allusion to Merlin, King Arthur’s legendary adviser and wizard.

Pop culture
‘I’m just trying to tell you the new way they’re teachin’ the first grade,
stubborn. It’s the Dewey Decimal System.’ Chapter 2
This is an allusion to the Dewey Decimal System, a library classification system
created by Melvil Dewey in 1876.

Historical
‘The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them the
hardest.’
This is an allusion to the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the most devastating
financial crash in U.S. history, the event that triggered the Great Depression

Religious
‘Miss Maudie’s face likened such an occurrence unto an Old Testament
pestilence.’ Chapter 5
This is an allusion to the Plagues of Egypt, which are recounted in the book of
Exodus and are disasters or plagues (including locusts, frogs, lice, flies, boils,
blood, darkness, and pestilence) sent by the God of Israel to force the Pharaoh
to free the Israelites from slavery

Historical/Political
‘Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the
Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of
hurling at us.’ Chapter 20
This is an allusion to Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the president at the time of
the novel, who was devoted to the support of civil rights. “Distaff” refers to the
female side of a family.
Writing style
The style of To Kill a Mockingbird is generally humorous and conversational,
but also deceptively sophisticated, which reflects the mix of straightforward
story-telling and complicated ideas. Because the book is framed as the
recollection of the narrator, the opening pages use complex, elevated
language: “brethren,” “dictum,” “impotent fury.” Once the narrator has set the
scene, she reverts to a more childlike narration, mixing elegant metaphors (“it
drew him as the moon draws water”) with frank statements (“Mrs. Dubose
was plain hell.”) Language and speech play significant roles throughout the
book. Scout and Jem misuse words, guess at the definition of words they don’t
understand, and remark on their father’s “last-will-and-testament” diction and
the elegant sentences of Miss Maudie. Language both reveals and conceals, as
when Calpurnia’s grammar becomes “erratic” when she’s furious, or Dill tells
lies to get the kids out of trouble. Atticus, a lawyer, trips his children up in their
own narratives. The contrast between what people say and what they mean is
echoed by the style of the story itself, which conceals adult subjects in the
apparently simple story of children.
Often in the novel, Scout has a tendency to summarize—sometimes
inaccurately—adult perspectives that she does not fully understand, providing
insight into the other characters. Frequently, Scout’s inaccuracies draw out a
hidden truth, as when she describes her aunt: ““Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my
deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-
A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray
of sunshine in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that one could be a ray of
sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a
sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.”
We can infer from this summary of Aunt Alexandra’s wishes that she wants
Scout to become a surrogate wife for her widowed father, and that one of the
concerns of the book is Scout’s conflicted passage from being a child to a
woman. In these summaries, Scout mixes words or phrases we can assume
came directly from the speaker – “ray of sunshine,” “lonely life” –with her own
interpretation of their meaning.
Throughout, Scout presents herself as a wry, somewhat sceptical character
accustomed to being misunderstood by, and keeping secrets from, adults. The
exception to this is the reader, whom she addresses as a trusted confidant. In
the passage about her aunt, Scout’s humorous exaggeration of Aunt
Alexandra’s concerns creates an intimacy between the reader and Scout, who
implies the reader understands her in a way her aunt does not. Many of the
adults in the novel are presented as baffled by Scout, and children in general.
Yet the style of the book is warm and confiding. This intimate, confessional
style of narration creates an atmosphere of trust and reliability in the narrator.
It also establishes Scout as a young, somewhat naïve character, who sees the
adults in her world in simplistic, exaggerated terms.
The novel also includes a great deal of Southern vernacular such as “ain’t,” “I
reckon,” and “yonder” to show the ways the characters all belong to the same
community yet occupy different positions due to class and education. The
Finches tend to use long words (such as “provocation”), signifying their
education, while Calpurnia speaks like the Finches in their home, but adopts a
more vernacular style at her church. When Scout questions her about “having
command of two languages,” Calpurnia says “folks don’t like to have
somebody around knowin’ more than they do.” The least educated characters
are unable to shift speaking styles in this way. When Mayella Ewell testifies,
Lee uses abbreviations and incorrect grammar to represent that Mayella is
uneducated: “So he come in the yard an’ I went in the house to get him the
nickel and I turned around an ’fore I knew it he was on me… I
fought’n’hollered, but he had me round the neck.” Overall, the vernacular
speech works with the content of the novel to give us a sense of each
character’s identity and place within the community. However, a possible
criticism is that these abbreviations encourage us to judge characters based on
their education, race, and class before we get to know them as individuals.

Point of View
To Kill a Mockingbird is written in the first person, with Jean “Scout” Finch
acting as both the narrator and the protagonist of the novel. Because Scout is
only six years old when the novel begins, and eight years old when it ends, she
has an unusual perspective that plays an important role in the work’s meaning.
In some ways, because she is so young, Scout is an unreliable narrator. Her
innocence causes her to misunderstand and misinterpret things. She considers
her father “feeble” because he is “nearly fifty,” which to a child seems ancient
but to an adult is middle-aged. When Dill tells her he wants to “get us a baby,”
Scout is unclear on how babies are made, thinking possibly God drops them
down the chimney. The reader often has to do the work of interpretation to
understand what characters are actually talking about or judge the severity of
a situation. At the same time, Scout’s innocence makes her more trustworthy
as a narrator than an adult might be, in that she lacks the sophistication to
shape her story or withhold information for her own benefit.
While Scout remains the narrator throughout the book, her involvement in the
events she describes changes once Tom Robinson’s trial becomes the focus. At
this point, Scout becomes more of an observer. Although there are some
moments when she plays an active role in the events, such as the scene where
she and Jem stop the mob from storming the jailhouse before the trial, for the
most part the protagonist of these scenes is her father, Atticus. During the
trial, lengthy passages are related directly as dialogue. Unlike the earlier
summaries that Scout uses to describe events, here the story slows to follow
the trial sentence-by-sentence. We have no reason to believe Scout is
misinterpreting events, because her descriptions of the action are
straightforward and largely visual. “Mr. Tate blinked and ran his hands through
his hair,” “his legs were crossed, and one arm was resting on the back of his
chair.” The only indication of Scout’s inability to understand events is her faith
that her father will win the trial. At the end of the novel, when the trial is over
and Bob Ewell attacks Scout and Jem on Halloween, Scout is once more at the
centre of events.
The use of a child narrator enables the reader to see the action through fresh
eyes, but Scout’s age also limits the narrative, especially in its treatment of
race. While she understands Tom’s conviction is unfair, Scout accepts much of
the institutionalized racism of the town. She sentimentalizes Calpurnia without
considering how Calpurnia herself feels about devoting her entire life to the
Finch family, at times sleeping on a cot in their kitchen and raising Scout and
Jem as her own children. Atticus challenges some of Scout’s overtly racist
statements, and corrects her in her use of the n-word. But Lee presents other
stereotypes without commentary, such as Scout’s statement “the sheriff
hadn’t the heart to put him in jail alongside the Negroes,” or her observation
“the warm, bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us,” or Jem’s
suggestion that “coloured folks” don’t show their age “because they can’t
read.” Because there is no separation from the narrator and the protagonist, it
is difficult to determine if Lee is critiquing or supporting Scout’s limited
perspective on events. When reading the novel, it is important to remember it
was written in 1960 and realize that while many aspects of Lee’s
representation of racism remain relevant today, other aspects are dated and
require further examination.
Tone
The tone of To Kill a Mockingbird changes over the course of the novel from
chatty and innocent to dark and knowing as Scout loses a degree of her
innocence. At the beginning of the novel, as Scout recounts a series of
anecdotes describing growing up in a small Southern town, the tone is light
and nostalgic. In these anecdotes, Scout recalls playing with her brother, Jem,
and their friend Dill. Many of the anecdotes also focus on times when Scout
learned an important lesson, such as her father scolding the kids for bothering
their mysterious next-door neighbour, Boo Radley. Other examples of stories
in this first section are the first time Scout sees snow, her first experience of
school, or the time she and Jem invite a poorer classmate over for lunch.
Reminiscences such as “somehow, it was hotter then,” and “it was a time of
vague optimism” create the sense of nostalgic remembrance of a simpler,
more innocent time. This sentimental tone creates a gauzy picture of the
Depression-era South that will be undermined by the starker reality of the
tensions revealed in the second half of the book.
After establishing a tone of folksy reminiscence, the narrative slows down to
focus on the trial of Tom Robinson, and the tone becomes serious and
foreboding. Seemingly harmless characters such as Mrs. Dubose and Mr.
Cunningham turn menacing as Atticus’s decision to defend Tom Robinson
incites their racist anger. When Scout and Jem observe Tom Robinson’s trial,
the tone is solemn and the narrative is primarily focused on the trial
proceedings, with little commentary from Scout. The tone of childish wonder is
replaced by a more realistic, pessimistic view of the world, as when Scout
remarks, “even the babies were still, and I suddenly wondered if they had been
smothered at their mothers’ breasts,” symbolizing the death of Scout’s own
innocence. The end of the book, when Bob Ewell attacks Scout and Jem,
contains some humorous references to Scout’s school pageant and her
enormous ham costume, but the attack is described in a frightening and
dramatic tone. After Bob Ewell is killed, the tone remains serious, more
melancholic than nostalgic, as Scout and Jem have learned difficult truths
about the world.
Foreshadowing
Because the book is narrated by an older Scout looking back on her childhood,
there are many instances of foreshadowing throughout the book.

Jem’s Accident
On the first page, Scout says that her brother, Jem, broke his arm when he was
almost thirteen, then adds, “I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem,
who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began
the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo
Radley come out.” The phrase “it all” indicates that the story behind Jem’s
accident is complicated, and the roots of the accident are open to
interpretation. Scout also mentions several characters—the Ewells, Dill, and
Boo Radley— who are important to the story. The next line, “if he wanted to
take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson,”
foreshadows one of the themes of the novel, which is the South’s history, and
the impossibility of untying the present from the region’s troubled past.
Andrew Jackson, and Maycomb’s history in particular, are referenced again at
the pageant, right before Jem and Scout are attacked, in a second instance of
the narrator linking the unresolved violence of the past with the present.
Jem’s accident is also heavily foreshadowed by the events immediately
preceding it the night of the Halloween pageant. Scout ends Chapter 27 by
saying that although Atticus and Aunt Alexandra do not go to the Halloween
pageant, “Jem said he would take me. Thus began our longest journey
together.” The word “longest” has two meanings here – it describes not just
physical distance, but the arduousness of the events to come. The ambiguity of
the phrase increases the drama of the Halloween pageant scene, which would
otherwise simply be an amusing anecdote. The ambiguity is increased by
several instances foreshadowing that the children should be afraid, rather than
excited, about the evening to come. Aunt Alexandra says “someone just
walked over my grave” right before the children leave for the pageant. Cecil
Jacobs scares them in the dark on their way to the school, and later, as they
leave, someone tells them to “be careful of haints.” Scout forgets her shoes,
and just as they turn back to get them, the lights in the school go out. Though
there have been many scenes of Scout and Jem walking safely through
Maycomb at night, these elements of foreshadowing imply that this night will
be different for them.
Boo Radley
Boo Radley’s function as a hero of the book is foreshadowed throughout.
While Scout, Jem, and Dill happily believe Boo is a dangerous, deranged fiend
who eats the neighborhood pets, Atticus’s reaction to their games implies Boo
has been miscast in the eyes of the town. When the children suggest Boo is
kept chained up in the house, Atticus says “there were other ways of turning
people into ghosts.” When he catches the children trying to get Boo to come
out, he says “what Mr. Radley did might seem peculiar to us, but it did not
seem peculiar to him.” Atticus’s sympathetic attitude towards Boo
foreshadows Boo’s role as protector of the children when he later saves them
from Bob Ewell. This revelation is underscored by the evolution of Boo’s
association with imagery of ghosts. In the beginning of the book, Jem and Dill
describe Boo as a ghost, which they fear. Later, Scout declares “haints, Hot
Steams, incantations, secret signs had vanished with our years,”
foreshadowing Boo’s evolution from a fearful figure of the children’s
imaginations to a real person they respect.

Bob Ewell
Bob Ewell doesn’t figure prominently in To Kill a Mockingbird until the second
half of the book, but his role as the antagonist and catalyst for the climax is
foreshadowed in the figure of his son, Burris. We meet Burris on Scout’s first
day of school, after Scout has brought home Walter Cunningham for lunch.
Walter is poor but proud, and the sympathetic portrayal of his poverty is
contrasted by the depiction of Burris, who is also impoverished. Burris is dirty,
covered in “cooties,” and announces he only attends school once a year,
indicating his family’s lack of education. The theme of the Ewell’s ignorance
will be revisited during the trial when Atticus cross-examines Burris’s sister
Mayella. Another classmate tells us Burris’s “paw’s right contentious,”
foreshadowing Bob Ewell’s attitude towards the Finches. We also learn that
Burris is “a mean one, a hard-down mean one,” attributes he shares with his
father. When the teacher tries to throw Burris out of class he insults and
threatens her, foreshadowing the violence his father later enacts on Scout and
Jem.
Key info – Summarized
Type Of Work Novel
Genre Southern Gothic, Courtroom drama, Bildungsroman
Language English
Time And Place Written Mid-1950s; New York City
Date Of Pubication 1960

Narrator Scout narrates the story herself, looking back in retrospect an

unspecified number of years after the events of the novel take place.
Point Of View
Scout narrates in the first person, telling what she saw and heard at the time
and augmenting this narration with thoughts and assessments of her
experiences in retrospect. Although she is by no means an omniscient narrator,
she has matured considerably over the intervening years and often implicitly
and humorously comments on the naïveté she displayed in her thoughts and
actions as a young girl. Scout mostly tells of her own thoughts but also devotes
considerable time to recounting and analyzing Jem’s thoughts and actions.
Tone
Childlike, humorous, nostalgic, innocent; as the novel progresses, increasingly
dark, foreboding, and critical of society

Tense Past

Setting (Time) 1933–1935

Setting (Place) The fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama

Protagonist Scout Finch

Major Conflict
The childhood innocence with which Scout and Jem begin the novel is
threatened by numerous incidents that expose the evil side of human nature,
most notably the guilty verdict in Tom Robinson’s trial and the vengefulness of
Bob Ewell. As the novel progresses, Scout and Jem struggle to maintain faith in
the human capacity for good in light of these recurring instances of human evil.
Rising Action
Scout, Jem, and Dill become fascinated with their mysterious neighbor Boo
Radley and have an escalating series of encounters with him. Meanwhile,
Atticus is assigned to defend a black man, Tom Robinson against the spurious
rape charges Bob Ewell has brought against him. Watching the trial, Scout, and
especially Jem, cannot understand how a jury could possibly convict Tom
Robinson based on the Ewells’ clearly fabricated story.

Climax
Despite Atticus’s capable and impassioned defence, the jury finds Tom
Robinson guilty. The verdict forces Scout and Jem to confront the fact that the
morals Atticus has taught them cannot always be reconciled with the reality of
the world and the evils of human nature.
Falling Action
When word spreads that Tom Robinson has been shot while trying to escape
from prison, Jem struggles to come to terms with the injustice of the trial and
of Tom Robinson’s fate. After making a variety of threats against Atticus and
others connected with the trial, Bob Ewell assaults Scout and Jem as they walk
home one night, but Boo Radley saves the children and fatally stabs Ewell. The
sheriff, knowing that Boo, like Tom Robinson, would be misunderstood and
likely convicted in a trial, protects Boo by saying that Ewell tripped and fell on
his own knife. After sitting and talking with Scout briefly, Boo retreats into his
house, and Scout never sees him again.

Themes The coexistence of good and evil; the importance of moral education;
social class
Motifs Gothic details; small-town life

Symbols Mockingbirds; Boo Radley

Foreshadowing cnt’d Scout’s mention of Jem’s broken arm on the first page
foreshadows that the novel will reveal the events leading up to Jem’s accident;
Burris Ewell’s appearance in school foreshadows the nastiness of Bob Ewell;
the presents Jem and Scout find in the oak tree foreshadow the eventual
discovery of Boo Radley’s good-heartedness; Bob Ewell’s threats and
suspicious behaviour after the trial foreshadow his attack on the children.

What Does the Ending Mean?

The novel ends after Bob Ewell attacks Scout and Jem, and Boo Radley rescues
them, killing Bob in the process. Atticus and Sheriff Heck Tate have a
conversation about how to deal with the situation, and Scout walks Boo home.
The conversation between Atticus and Heck can be difficult to understand,
because the two men are talking about two different things. Atticus, who
believes Jem is the one who killed Bob, thinks Heck wants to cover up the truth
to protect Jem. Atticus is adamantly against lying to protect Jem. He thinks that
protecting Jem from the law will undermine Atticus’s relationship with his
children and everything that he has taught them. Heck, however, realizes that
Boo killed Bob Ewell, and wants to cover up the truth to protect Boo. Heck
doesn’t believe that Boo will be in any kind of legal trouble because he was
clearly protecting the children, but he thinks that the community will want to
thank Boo and make him a hero which would be ruinous to Boo’s intense
desire for privacy.
Atticus strongly opposes covering up Jem’s involvement in Bob Ewell’s death,
but he accepts that covering up Boo’s involvement is the right decision. This
apparent inconsistency is an important moment in the reader’s understanding
of Atticus and his motivations. Atticus is a highly principles man who values law
and justice, but he is a man who values his relationship with his children even
more. Atticus is not afraid that covering up Jem’s involvement will be unethical
or illegal. He is concerned that doing something so hypocritical will ruin his
relationship with his children. Atticus would rather that Jem face some
difficulties than think that his father did not hold him to the same standard as
everyone else. Atticus does not have that kind of relationship with Boo, and in
fact likely owes Boo for the lives of both of his children, so Atticus is willing to
accept that subjecting Boo to public scrutiny would be a mistake.
Another important aspect of the novel’s ending is Scout’s walk home with Boo.
Boo specifically asks Scout to take him home – his only spoken lines of dialogue
in the entire novel, revealing that this character who has been a source of fear
for so many of the townspeople, including Scout and Jem, is quite fearful
himself. In seeing Boo’s fear, Scout is put into the position of wanting to
protect him, and his dignity, from the rest of the town. Calling Boo “Mr.
Radley,” Scout takes him arm so that it looks like Boo is the one who is walking
her down the street. In protecting Boo’s dignity and empathizing with his fear,
Scout puts herself in another person’s shoes and thinks about the world from
their perspective, just as Atticus instructed her. Atticus’s final lines, that most
people are nice when you finally see them for who they are, underscores
Scout’s maturation process from a child who was irrationally afraid of Boo to
an adult capable of seeing Boo as a human being

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

1) How is Tom Robinson a mockingbird?

The phrase "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" refers to intentionally and
pointlessly destroying something that does no harm. The mockingbird is a
songbird, not a pest, and it isn't a game bird. Killing a mockingbird serves no
purpose, and therefore is an act of unnecessary cruelty. When the jury convicts
Tom Robinson of rape despite the absence of physical evidence and despite
Atticus’s compelling defense, the jury is guilty of the same unnecessary cruelty.
The jury specifically, and the town of Maycomb generally, destroy a good
person who has never done harm simply because of the color of his skin.
Though Tom is the symbolic mockingbird at the heart of the novel, he is not
the only character who fits that description. Heck Tate also specifically
describes Boo Radley as a mockingbird, in that he is a harmless person who is
the victim of pointless cruelty. Unlike Tom Robinson, Boo Radley is not
destroyed, though he does suffer greatly.

2) What does the rabid dog Atticus shoots symbolize?

In Chapter 11, Atticus shoots a mad (rabid) dog in the street. This episode
serves two important purposes in the novel. Before the incident with the dog,
Scout and Jem saw their father as old, reserved, and not particularly powerful.
When Scout and Jem learn that their father is known as the best shot in the
entire county, they learn to see Atticus with a greater sense of respect. In a
larger symbolic sense, the dog, because it has rabies, is a dangerous threat to
the community. In shooting the dog, then, Atticus is trying to protect the
community from its most dangerous elements. Similarly, in defending Tom
Robinson, Atticus tries to protect the community from its most dangerous,
racist tendencies. Later in the book, in Chapter 22, Miss Maudie tells Jem
about Tom Robinson’s trial, “I simply want to tell you that there are some men
in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one
of them.” Atticus’s killing of the dog and defense of Tom Robinson both reflect
that he is willing and able to take on things that the rest of Maycomb is
unequipped to face.

3) How did Jem break his arm?

In the first sentence of the novel, Scout says that Jem broke his arm. She starts
to explain what happened but says that she needs to go back and provide the
necessary context in order for the story to make sense. The rest of the novel is
the background context for Jem’s broken arm. At the end of the novel Bob
Ewell, who has suffered as a result of Atticus’s defense of Tom Robinson,
attacks Jem and Scout on their way home from the Halloween pageant. Jem
breaks his arm in the struggle. The story of a broken arm serves as a narrative
device, bookending the entire novel with Scout’s telling of the story. While
initially the reader might assume Jem broke his arm through innocent
childhood games, by the end of the novel we understand the darker, more
complicated truth behind the accident.
4) What is the significance of the gifts Boo Radley leaves in the knothole?
In the early chapters of the book, Jem and Scout find several small items,
ranging from sticks of gum to a pocket watch, left by Boo Radley in the
knothole of a tree on the Radley property. These gifts are the first of several
kindnesses that Boo extends to the children, ultimately culminating in Boo
killing Bob Ewell to protect Jem. The gifts also represent one of the ways that
Boo tries to engage with the world around him without giving up the secrecy
and privacy that he requires. Despite his reclusive nature, Boo engages the
Finch children in a more generous and kind way than many of the other adults
that they encounter. But because of Boo’s limitations, his interactions must
take a remote form.

5) Why does the jury find Tom guilty?

The jury’s decision to convict Tom Robinson for a crime he clearly did not
commit plagues Jem (and many readers) as an intolerable miscarriage of
justice. The most obvious reason justice isn’t served is because the jury’s
overwhelming racism prevents Tom from getting a fair trial. Another reason
the jury finds Tom guilty is because both Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob,
both perjured themselves on the stand. In addition to the presumption of an
impartial jury, the justice system operates on the assumption that witnesses
will tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” after being
sworn in to testimony. But both Mayella and Bob lied rather than admit that
Mayella tried to kiss Tom. Tom’s race, combined with the Ewells’ lies, proved
enough for the racist jury to find Tom guilty, even in the face of overwhelming
evidence of Tom’s innocence.

6) What role does Calpurnia play in the family and in the novel?
Calpurnia is a surrogate mother to Jem and Scout who teaches them about
good manners, hard work, and honesty. She takes care of the family’s needs,
and Atticus trusts her unequivocally. She is also the narrator’s window into
Maycomb’s African American community. She takes the children to her church
one Sunday, and, because of this, Scout and Jem can sit in the “colored”
balcony during Tom Robinson’s trial. She helps Atticus comfort Tom’s wife,
Helen, and she knows how to read and write, which is uncommon in her
community.