TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD BY HARPER LEE

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRDBYHARPER LEE
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BiographyHARPER LEE

• Born in 1926, Harper Lee grew up in
  depression-era Monroeville, Alabama. The youngest
  of four children, Lee followed her attorney
  father into law.
• Lee attended the University of Alabama law school
  and spent the 1950's working for Eastern Airlines
  and writing short stories. On the suggestion of
  her editor, Lee developed one of her short
  stories into her only novel, To Kill A
  Mockingbird, published in 1960.
• The novel won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and spent
  80 weeks on the bestseller list. It has been
  translated into 40 languages and there are over
  30 million copies in print.

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BiographyHARPER LEE

• Mockingbird's success also inspired the box
  office smash, To Kill a Mockingbird, starring
  Gregory Peck.
• Lee published several essays in the early 1960s
  but, as a true literary recluse, has published
  nothing since then and refuses all requests for
  interviews.
• Now 74, the elusive Lee divides her time between
  Monroeville and New York City.

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Summary 1

• The story of To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in
  Alabama in the Depression, and is narrated by the
  main character, a little girl named Scout Finch.
• Her father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer with high
  moral standards. She and her brother, Jem, and
  their friend Dill are intrigued by the local
  rumours about a man named Boo Radley who lives in
  their neighbourhood but never sets foot from his
  house.
• Legend has it that he once stabbed his father in
  the leg with a pair of scissors, and he is made
  out to be a kind of monster. Dill is from
  Mississippi but spends his summer in Maycomb at a
  house near the Finches.

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Summary 2

• The children are curious to know more about Boo,
  and create a mini-drama to enact which tells the
  events of his life as they know them. They slowly
  begin moving closer to the house itself, which is
  said to be haunted. They try leaving notes for
  Boo on his windowsill, but are caught by Atticus,
  who firmly reprimands them.
• Then they try sneaking to the house at night and
  looking through its windows. However, Boo's
  brother, Nathan Radley, who lives with him,
  thinks he hears a prowler and begins firing his
  gun.
• The children get away, though Jem loses his pants
  in a gate. When he returns, his ripped pants have
  been folded and roughly sewn up.

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Summary 3

• Other mysterious things happen to the Finch
  children. A certain tree near the Radley house
  has a hole in which little presents are often
  left for them, such as pennies and chewing gum.
  When they leave a note for the giver of these
  gifts, Boo's brother plugs up the hole the next
  day with cement.
• The next winter brings unexpected cold and snows,
  and the house of the kind neighbour Miss Maudie
  catches on fire. While Jem and Scout, shivering,
  watch the blaze from near the Radley house,
  someone puts a blanket around Scout. She doesn't
  realise until afterwards that Boo Radley must
  have been the one to do this.

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Summary 4

• Atticus decides to take on a case involving a
  black man named Tom Robinson who has been accused
  of raping a very poor white girl named Mayella
  Ewell, a member of the notorious Ewell family,
  who belong to the layer of Maycomb society that
  people refer to as "trash.
• The Finches all face harsh criticism in racist
  Maycomb because of Atticuss decision to defend
  Tom, but Atticus insists upon going through with
  the case because his conscience could not let him
  do otherwise.
• He knows that Tom has almost no chance, because
  the white jury will never believe his story, but
  he wants to reveal the truth of what happened to
  his fellow townspeople as well as expose their
  bigotry.

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Summary 5

• Scout and Jem find themselves whispered at and
  taunted, and they have trouble keeping their
  tempers. At a family Christmas gathering, Scout
  beats up her cloying relative Francis when he
  accuses Atticus of ruining the family name.
• Jem cuts off the tops of an old neighbour's
  flower bushes after she derides Atticus, and then
  as punishment he has to read out loud to her
  every day while she breaks her morphine
  addiction.
• Atticus holds this old woman up as an example of
  true courage the will to keep fighting even when
  you know you can't win.

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Summary 6

• The time for the trial draws closer, and
  Atticus's sister Alexandra comes to stay with the
  family. She is proper and old-fashioned and wants
  to shape Scout into the model of the Southern
  feminine ideal, much to Scout's resentment.
• Dill runs away from his home, where his mother
  and new father don't seem interested in him, and
  stays in Maycomb for the summer of Tom's trial.
• The night before the trial, Tom is moved into the
  county jail, and Atticus, fearing a possible
  lynching, stands guard outside the jail door all
  night. Jem is concerned about him, and the three
  children sneak into town to find him.

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Summary 7

• A group of men arrives ready to cause some
  violence to Tom, but Scout runs out and begins to
  speak to one of the men, the father of one of her
  classmates in school. Her innocence brings them
  out of their mob mentality, and they leave.
• The trial pits the evidence of the white Ewells
  against Tom's evidence. According to the Ewells,
  Mayella asked Tom to do some work for her while
  her father was out, and Tom came into their house
  and forcibly beat and raped Mayella until her
  father appeared and scared him away.
• Tom says that Mayella invited him inside, then
  threw her arms around him and began to kiss him.
  When her father arrived, he flew into a rage and
  beat her, while Tom ran away in fright.

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Summary 8

• According to the sheriff's testimony, Mayella's
  bruises were on the right side of her face. Tom
  Robinson's left arm is useless due to an old
  accident, whereas Mr. Ewell leads with his left.
• Given the evidence, Tom should go free, but after
  hours of deliberation, the jury pronounces him
  guilty.
• Though the verdict is unfortunate, Atticus feels
  some satisfaction that the jury took so long
  decidingusually the decision would be made in
  minutes, because a black man's word would not be
  trusted.
• Atticus is hoping for an appeal, but
  unfortunately Tom tries to escape from his prison
  and is shot to death. Jem has trouble handling
  the results of the trial, feeling that his trust
  in the goodness and rationality of humanity has
  been betrayed.

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Summary 9

• Meanwhile, Mr. Ewell has been threatening Atticus
  and other people connected with the trial because
  he feels he was humiliated. He gets his revenge
  one night while Jem and Scout are walking home
  from Halloween play at their school. He follows
  them home in the dark, then runs at them and
  attempts to kill them.
• Jem breaks his arm, and Scout, who wearing a
  confining costume, is helpless throughout the
  attack. However, the elusive Boo Radley stabs Mr.
  Ewell and saves them. Scout finally has a chance
  to meet the shy and nervous Boo. The sheriff
  declares that Mr. Ewell fell on his own knife so
  that Boo won't have to be tried for murder. Scout
  walks Boo home. He goes inside and she never sees
  him again.

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CHARACTER STUDIES

• Scout
• Six-year-old Jean Louise "Scout" Finch narrates
  the novel.
• A tomboy at heart, Scout works hard not to "act
  like a girl" by wearing overalls instead of
  dresses and beating up other children who
  antagonise her.
• Scout spends her days playing outside with her
  older brother, Jem, and her best friend, Dill.
• Extremely smart and bright for her age, Scout
  loves to read spends time reading with her
  father, Atticus, every night.
• Being head strong, Scout often finds herself in
  trouble with her father, her housekeeper,
  Calpurnia, her neighbours, her aunt Alexandra,
  and her teachers.
• Despite the rules of etiquette governing life in
  her small town, Scout voices her opinions and
  recognises hypocrisy and injustice in her elders.
  

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CHARACTER STUDIES

• Atticus
• Father of Jem and Scout, Atticus Finch sits on
  the Alabama State Legislature and acts as
  Maycomb's leading attorney.
• The epitome of moral character, Atticus teaches
  his children and his community how to stand up
  for one's beliefs in the face of prejudice and
  ignorance by defending a black man, Tom Robinson,
  wrongfully accused of raping a white woman.
• Having lost his wife when Scout was two years
  old, Atticus devotes himself to his children
  despite criticism from family and neighbours who
  think his children lack discipline and proper
  guidance.
• Atticus stands as one of literature's strongest
  and most positive father figures.

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CHARACTER STUDIES

• Jem
• Ten years old when the book begins , Jeremy "Jem"
  Finch acts as Scout's playmate and protector.
• Entering adolescence during the course of the
  novel.
• Jem matures as he struggles with issues of racism
  and intolerance.
• On the brink of manhood, Jem goes through phases
  as he comes to grips with his family's past and
  his future role in society.
• Sometimes moody and sullen, sometimes kind and
  gentle, Jem emerges as a leader as he helps Scout
  understand how to get along in school and reminds
  her to respect Atticus and their other elders.

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CHARACTER STUDIES

• Dill
• Harper Lee based her character, Charles Baker
  "Dill" Harris, on her girlhood friend and famous
  writer, Truman Capote.
• Spending his summers with his relative, Miss
  Rachel, in Maycomb, Dill, who is Scout's age,
  comes from a broken family.
• Dill spins grand tales about his father but runs
  away from home late in the book because he feels
  his mother and step-father don't care about him.
• During his summers however, he, Jem, and Scout
  entertain themselves by pretending they are
  characters in plays and attempting to coax Boo
  Radley out of his house.

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CHARACTER STUDIES

• Calpurnia The Finch's black housekeeper,
  Calpurnia acts as a mother figure and
  disciplinarian in the Finch household. Atticus
  trusts Calpurnia, relies on her for support
  raising his children, and considers her part of
  the family. Calpurnia also gives the children
  insight into her world when she takes them to her
  church.
• Boo Radley Arthur "Boo" Radley is Maycomb's town
  recluse. Myths and rumours about Boo and his
  family abound. According to town gossip, Boo
  stabbed his father in the leg when he was a boy
  and has since been confined to his house. The
  children imagine Boo as a ghoulish figure who
  eats cats and stalks about the neighbourhood
  under the cover of night. In fact, Boo stands as
  a figure of innocence who befriends and protects
  the children in his own way.

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CHARACTER STUDIES

• Aunt Alexandra Atticus' sister, Aunt Alexandra
  is a proper Southern woman who maintains a strict
  code about with whom she and her family should
  associate. She criticises Atticus for letting
  Scout run wild and when she moves into their home
  during Tom Robinson's trial, Alexandra urges
  Scout to wear dresses and become a proper lady.
• Tom Robinson The most important client of
  Atticus' career, Tom Robinson, a young, black
  man, is a church going, father of four accused of
  rape by Mayella Ewell.
• Bob Ewell The father of eight, Bob Ewell, a
  white man, and his family live behind Maycomb's
  dump. Desperately poor, Ewell uses his welfare
  money to buy alcohol while his children go
  hungry. His nineteen year old daughter, Mayella,
  accuses Tom Robinson of rape and battery.

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CHARACTER STUDIES

• Miss Maudie Miss Maudie is the counterpoint to
  Aunt Alexandra. A neighbour to the Finch family,
  Maudie offers Scout a female role model opposite
  from Alexandra. Maudie respects the children and
  admires Atticus. Unlike the other women in the
  town, Maudie minds her own business and behaves
  without pretension or hypocrisy.
• Walter Cunningham Walter Cunningham plays a
  small but important role in Mockingbird. A
  farming family, the Cunninghams occupy a middle
  position in Maycomb's class hierarchy above
  African American citizens and the Ewells but
  below Atticus and the Finch family. Honest and
  hard working, Walter Cunningham and his son are
  respectable community members who represent the
  potential in everyone to understand right from
  wrong despite ignorance and prejudice.

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TOP TEN QUOTES

• 1) Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired
  old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather
  the streets turned to red slop grass grew on
  sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square.
  Somehow, it was hotter then a black dog suffered
  on a summer's day bony mules hitched to Hoover
  carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of
  the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars
  wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed
  before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and
  by nightfall were like soft teacakes with
  frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.Scout

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TOP TEN QUOTES

• 2) "What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank
  until he was drunk he wouldn't be as hard as some
  men are at their best. There are just some kind
  of men whowho're so busy worrying about the next
  world they've never learned to live in this one,
  and you can look down the street and see the
  results." Miss Maudie
• 3) "They're certainly entitled to think that, and
  they're entitled to full respect for their
  opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live
  with other folks I've got to live with myself.
  The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule
  is a person's conscience." Atticus

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TOP TEN QUOTES

• 4) When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus
  wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed
  us in the rudiments thereof he said Atticus
  wasn't interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem,
  "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back
  yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all
  the bluejays you want, if you can hit em, but
  remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That
  was the only time I ever hear Atticus say it was
  a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie
  about it. "You're father's right," she said.
  "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music
  for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's
  gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do
  one thing but sing their hearts out for us.
  That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird."

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TOP TEN QUOTES

• 5) "The witnesses for the statehave presented
  themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in
  the cynical confidence that their testimony would
  not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen
  would go along with them on the assumptionthe
  evil assumptionthat all Negroes lie, that all
  Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all
  Negro men are not to be trusted around our women,
  an assumption one associates with minds of their
  caliber. Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a
  lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do
  not have to point out to you. You know the truth,
  the truth is this some Negroes lie, some Negroes
  are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted
  around women, black or white. But this is a truth
  that applies to the human race and to no
  particular race of men"Atticus

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TOP TEN QUOTES

• 6) "I don't know how they could convict Tom
  Robinson, but they did it. They've done it
  before and they did it tonight and they'll do it
  again and when they do itseems that only
  children weep"Atticus talking to Jem
• 7) "As you grow older, you'll see white men
  cheat black men every day of your life, but let
  me tell you something and don't you forget
  itwhenever a white man does that to a black man,
  no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine
  a family he comes from, that white man is
  trash."Atticus

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TOP TEN QUOTES

• 8) "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't
  they get along with each other? If they're all
  alike, why do they go out of their way to despise
  each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to
  understand something. I think I'm beginning to
  understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the
  house all this timeit's because he wants to stay
  inside."Jem
• 9) "I'm not a very good man, sir, but I am
  sheriff of Maycomb County. Lived in this town all
  my life an' I'm goin' on forty-three years old.
  Know everything that's happened here since before
  I was born. There's a black boy dead for no
  reason, and the man responsible for it's dead.
  Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch.
  Let the dead bury the dead."Sheriff Tate

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TOP TEN QUOTES

• 10) "Neighbours bring food with death and flowers
  with sickness and little things in between. Boo
  was our neighbour. He gave us two soap dolls, a
  broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck
  pennies, and our lives. But neighbours give in
  return. We never put back into the tree what we
  took out of it we had given him nothing, and it
  made me sad."Scout

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METAPHOR ANALYSIS

• Mockingbird
• The mockingbird represents innocence.
• Like hunters who kill mockingbirds for sport,
  people kill innocence, or other people who are
  innocent, without thinking about what they are
  doing.
• Atticus stands firm in his defence of innocence
  and urges his children not to shoot mockingbirds
  both literally and figuratively.
• The mockingbird motif arises four times during To
  Kill a Mockingbird. First, when Atticus gives Jem
  and Scout air guns for Christmas and instructs
  them not to kill mockingbirds.
• Second, when B.B. Underwood writes about Tom
  Robinson's death in his column.
• Third, a mockingbird sings right before Bob Ewell
  attacks Jem and Scout.
• Finally, Scout agrees with Atticus that
  prosecuting Boo for Ewell's murder would be like
  killing a mockingbird.

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METAPHOR ANALYSIS

• Boo Radley
• Boo Radley represents fear.
• Small town folks fear that if they act eccentric
  and fail to adhere to social rules they too will
  end up like Boo, isolated and remembered as a
  grotesque monster.
• It is this fear that supports the social status
  quo and keeps individuals from standing up for
  that which they believe. Until people can
  understand and accept Boo, as Scout does at the
  end of the book, they will always be stuck in a
  world filled with fear, lies, and ignorance.
• Guns
• Guns represent false strength. According to
  Atticus, guns do not prove manhood or bravery.
• Manhood and bravery come from a man's ability to
  persevere and fight using his wits, his heart,
  and his character.
• Neighbours use and venerate guns to the detriment
  of developing their own personal strength.

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THEME ANALYSIS

• During the first half of Mockingbird Harper Lee
  constructs a sweet and affectionate portrait of
  growing up in the vanished world of small town
  Alabama.
• Lee, however, proceeds to undermine her portrayal
  of small town gentility during the second half of
  the book.
• Lee dismantles the sweet façade to reveal a
  rotten, rural underside filled with social lies,
  prejudice, and ignorance.
• But no one in Mockingbird is completely good or
  evil. Every character is human, with human flaws
  and weaknesses.
• Lee even renders Atticus, the paragon of
  morality, symbolically weak by making him an old
  and widowed man as opposed to young and virile.
• It is how these flawed characters influence and
  are influenced by the major themes underpinning
  their society.
• Three major themes run through To Kill a
  Mockingbird education, bravery, and prejudice.

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Education

• We learn how important education is to Atticus
  and his children in the first chapter when Jem
  announces to Dill that Scout has known how to
  read since she was a baby.
• Atticus reads to the children from newspapers and
  magazines as if they are adults who can
  understand issues at his level.
• By the time Scout attends her first day of
  school she is highly literate, far surpassing the
  other children in the classroom and frustrating
  her teacher whose task it is to teach her
  students according to a predetermined plan.

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Education

• It soon becomes clear why Atticus thinks
  education is so important.
• During his closing arguments Atticus explicitly
  acknowledges the ignorance blinding people's
  minds and hearts
• "the witnesses for the statehave presented
  themselves to you gentlemenin the cynical
  confidence that their testimony would not be
  doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go
  along with them on theevil assumptionthat all
  Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically
  immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be
  trusted around our women, an assumption one
  associates with minds of their caliber".
• Education is the key to unlocking the ignorance
  that causes such prejudice. Jem begins to
  understand this lesson toward the end of the book
  when he wonders whether family status could be
  based more on education than on bloodlines.

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Bravery

• Jem also learns powerful lessons from his father
  regarding bravery and cowardice.
• Early in Mockingbird we learn that Atticus does
  not approve of guns. He believes that guns do not
  make men brave and that the children's
  fascination with guns is unfounded.
• To prove his point, he sends Jem to read for Mrs.
  Dubose who struggles to beat her morphine
  addiction before she dies.
• He wants to show his son one shows true bravery
  "when you know you're licked before you begin but
  you begin anyway and you see it through no matter
  what".
• Atticus also role models his sense of bravery by
  refusing to carry a gun to protect Tom Robinson
  from angry farmers and refusing to carry a gun to
  protect himself after Bob Ewell threatens to use
  a gun.

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Bravery

• But bravery runs deeper than the decision to
  carry a gun. Atticus shows bravery when he takes
  Tom's case despite knowing that his town would
  turn against him and his children.
• Jem shows bravery when the children intervene on
  behalf of Atticus and Jem refuses to leave his
  father's side during the showdown with farmers at
  the jailhouse.
• And, perhaps the biggest lesson Scout must learn
  is to turn away and show real bravery rather than
  fight when people antagonise her.

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Prejudice

• The most important theme of Mockingbird remains
  the notion of prejudice in all of its forms.
• Clearly, with the Tom Robinson case, Lee's
  characters deal with racial prejudice head on.
  References to black men as "niggers" and "boys"
  persist throughout the book.
• Black people occupy the lowest class level of
  Maycomb society as Maycomb's white population of
  every class waste no time reinforcing their rigid
  class rules.
• The fact that Atticus realises that he has no
  chance to win his case defending Tom because Tom
  is black offers the most explicit indicator of
  deep-rooted racism.
• His closing argument in Chapter Twenty clearly
  outlines Atticus's views on racism. However, Lee
  also shows us prejudice as it pertains to gender
  and social class.
• Although the entire town subscribes outwardly to
  traditional gender roles and class distinctions,
  Aunt Alexandra plays the greatest role in
  reinforcing these notions within the Finch
  family.

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Prejudice

• Alexandra believes that because the Finch family
  comes from a long line of landowners who have
  been the county for generations they deserve
  greater respect than do other people and they
  must comport themselves according to their
  status.
• She refuses to associate with both black and
  white citizens alike because they do not fill the
  same social position.
• Atticus, on the other hand, urges his children to
  sympathise with others and to "walk in their
  skin" before they judge or criticise others.
• Scout suffers acutely from the stereotypes
  imposed upon her because of the rigid sexism and
  gender rules that govern southern life.
• Although the characters do not explicitly deal
  with gender issues, Lee does offer several
  characters, Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie in
  particular, who illustrate the broad spectrum of
  southern womanhood that lies beneath the
  simplistic "southern belle" stereotype.

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Reflections

• Reflect on your reactions to the main characters
  in To Kill A Mockingbird - Scout, Atticus, Jem,
  Bill, Calpurnia, Tom Robinson, Mayella Ewell, Bob
  Ewell, and Boo Radley. Which of these did you
  find most likeable? Least likeable? Did any of
  the characters have some qualities you
  sympathised with and other qualities you didn't
  like? Jot down the likeable and unlikeable
  aspects of each of the characters, and compare
  your impressions and reasons for them with the
  responses of your classmates.
• Literary characters are considered to be "flat"
  when they are presented by the author as
  one-sided and unchanging, behaving in ways that
  are predictable. Characters are considered
  "round" when they are depicted as having greater
  complexity and depth, some weaknesses and some
  strengths, and a wide range of human emotions

37
Reflections

• Which characters in the Harper Lee novel struck
  you as being more "flat" or more "round"? Why
  might an author create flat characters in a given
  work? Are the minor characters in To Kill A
  Mockingbird - e.g. Miss Maudie, Calpurnia, Aunt
  Alexandra, Miss Fisher (the schoolteacher),
  Nathan Radley, Mrs. Dubose, Mr. Cunningham,
  Sheriff Tate, and others - one dimensional, or do
  some have "round" qualities?
• An important part of the novel is Harper Lee's
  characterisation of the three children - Scout,
  Jem, and Dill, who gain life experiences and
  mature as they face different problems and
  interact with the adults in the novel.

38
Reflections

• Think about your childhood and the way you viewed
  the other children and the adults in your
  environment. Discuss how your impressions of
  people changed or did not change as you gained
  experience and came to know people better over
  the years.
• Many of the characters in the novel are depicted
  by the author as classifying each other according
  to rigid categories. They hold stereotypes about
  how individuals will behave as a result of their
  age, gender, race, social status, and other fixed
  categories. Which characters are the victims of
  stereotyping? Do any of them break through the
  behaviour expected of them, showing individuality
  and exposing the falseness of narrowly labelling
  people?

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POINT OF VIEW

• The novel begins as the voice of a mature adult
  recalling events from childhood and sometimes
  shifts to the point of view of a six-year old.
  Did you notice the shifts occurring? If so, did
  you find them distracting? How are these
  perspectives - the knowing adult's and the
  innocent child's - developed in the narration?
  What advantages did the author have as a result
  of being able to move from one perspective to the
  other?
• W. E. B. DuBoise speaks of "double-consciousness"
  - the sense of having to look at oneself through
  the eyes of others. Which characters in To Kill A
  Mockingbird are basically forced to look at
  themselves through the lens of others, being
  expected to behave as other people want them to
  behave?

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POINT OF VIEW

• Do you believe that the sense of "double
  consciousness" is still strong in our present
  society? That is, to what extent are people of
  different ethnicities, social classes, genders,
  and age levels essentially defined by others
  today? To what extent do you feel that you are
  forced to behave according to other's views of
  you? How are you affected when others define you?
  Consider how the person doing the defining is
  affected.
• Is some measure of "double consciousness"
  inevitable in human relations and in society?
  Why, or why not?

41
SETTING

• Compare the city of Maycomb to the place where
  you grew up, noting similarities and differences.
  
• The story is set in a small town in southern
  Alabama during the Depression of the 1930s. What
  aspects of the story seem to be particular to
  that place and time? What aspects of the story
  are universal, cutting across time and place? In
  what ways are the people you know today similar
  to and different from those in Maycomb?

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PLOT

• Did To Kill A Mockingbird hold your interest?
  What parts of the story held your interest most
  strongly? Why? What parts seemed less
  interesting? Why?
• What are the chief conflicts in the story? Do
  they have clear starting points and resolutions?
  Were any conflicts left unresolved? Were any
  conflicts resolved in ways that you found
  disturbing?
• Many readers see To Kill A Mockingbird as having
  two parts, one centering on Boo Radley and the
  other on the trial of Tom Robinson. How were the
  two stories brought together at the end of the
  novel? When you were reading the novel, how did
  you handle the shift of emphasis from Boo Radley
  to the trial?

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SYMBOL

• Certain objects take on symbolic value in the
  TKM. That is, an object is used by the author as
  apart of the setting or narrative, yet that
  object points to or represents something outside
  itself. Of course, a central symbol is the
  mockingbird, described by Miss Maudie as a
  creature that should never be killed because it
  is harmless and even provides song for the
  enjoyment of others. Both Boo Radley and Tom
  Robinson are basically blameless individuals who
  are at the mercy of society, yet society is cruel
  to Boo, and ultimately Tom is murdered. The
  symbol of the mockingbird also points to Scout,
  both as an innocent child and as the grown-up
  narrator, who "sings a song" in telling the
  story.

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SYMBOL

• Can you think of ways in which the following
  function as symbols in the novel?
• the mad dog
• the treehouse
• Camellias
• the gun
• Atticus' pocket watch
• Can you assign symbolic meaning to any of these
  objects in terms of the present day? How do these
  present day symbolic meanings differ from the
  meanings that those symbols held in the novel?

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BACKGROUND

• In the Southern United States, before the 1960's,
  blacks were segregated from whites. This meant
  that not only did they live in different areas,
  but by law they were not permitted to go to the
  same schools, sit in the same part of the
  courthouse, eat in the same restaurants, use the
  same public rest rooms or drink at the same water
  fountains. These laws were unconstitutional and
  have now been changed.
• The Constitution of the United States requires
  that before a person is convicted of a crime he
  must be given "due process of law." In the case
  of persons accused of a felony or a crime for
  which they can be imprisoned for a long time,
  this includes the right to a lawyer.

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45

• If the defendant is poor and cannot afford to
  hire a lawyer, the state must provide a lawyer
  for him. The judge appointed Atticus as defence
  counsel for the man accused of rape to comply
  with this provision of the Constitution.
• Lynching is an execution, usually by hanging, in
  punishment for a crime or offence for which there
  has been no conviction. Often, people who are
  lynched have committed no crime at all.
• Lynching was named after a Virginia Justice of
  the Peace, Charles Lynch, who ordered the
  extra-legal hanging of Tory sympathisers during
  the American Revolution.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Why did the Judge ask Atticus to defend the black
  man accused of rape? How does this relate to the
  Constitution of the United States?
• Why were there no black children at the school
  attended by Jem and Scout? Were the black
  children permitted to attend school? What were
  the differences between the schools attended by
  the white children and the schools attended by
  the black children?
• Why was it so threatening for the white community
  if a black man raped a white woman? Why was it so
  bad for the accuser if the community believed
  that she had sought the attentions of a black
  man?
• Why did Atticus shoot the dog? Why were the
  children not allowed to go near the dog, even
  after it was shot dead?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What is a "nigger lover"? Why was Atticus
  considered a "nigger lover"?
• What was the importance to Jem (the son) that
  Atticus was such a good shot?
• Why wouldn't Atticus allow Jem (the son) to have
  a gun?
• When Atticus took the housekeeper, Cal, home from
  work, why did she sit in the back seat of the
  car?
• What were the intentions of the group of men who
  confronted Atticus at the jail during the night?
• Did Atticus and the Sheriff do the right thing to
  cover up the fact that Boo had killed the
  villain? What if Boo went on to kill another
  person?