To Kill A Mocking Bird : Harper Lee - A chapter analysis.

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To Kill A Mocking Bird : Harper Lee

Chapter 1: To Kill a Mockingbird begins, "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow…When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident.  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" (9).  Only after one finishes Mockingbird does the significance of Jem's broken arm become apparent.  How did it happen? Harper Lee refers to the subject only one other time at the end of the book, turning her attention instead to describing the setting and introducing her main characters.  Through six-year old Scout, her narrator, Lee draws an affectionate and detailed portrait of Maycomb, Alabama, a small, sleepy, depression-era town.  She writes, "People moved slowly then.  They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of stores around it, took their time about everything.  A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer.  There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy, and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County" (11). 

In chapter one we meet Atticus, Scout's father, who left his home, Finch's Landing, down the river from Maycomb, to study law in Mobile, Alabama.  Atticus returned to Maycomb to practice law and help his brother, Jack, through medical school.  About Atticus, Scout relates, "He liked Maycomb, he was Maycomb County born and bred; he knew his people, and they knew him, and because of [his father's] industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town" (11).  We meet Calpurnia, the Finch's housekeeper who Scout describes as "all angles and bones…her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard" (12).  Scout, opinionated and vocal, faced Calpurnia's discipline often.  She tells us, "our battles were epic and one-sided.  Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side" (12).  Finally, we meet six-year old Dill a neighbor boy visiting for the summer from Meridian, Mississippi.  Jem and Scout spot Dill hiding in a collard patch and proceed to interrogate him.  Dill prides himself on his ability to read and impresses Jem by revealing that his mother entered him in a beautiful baby contest, won five dollars, and gave the winnings to Dill who used the money to visit the picture shows 20 times.  Having passed Jem and Scout's tests, Dill quickly becomes the Finch children's best friend.  The three playmates spend their time acting out scenes from their favorite books and dreaming about Boo Radley.  "The Radley Place fascinated Dill.  In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water, but drew him no nearer than the light-pole on the corner" (14). 

Thus begins the fascination with Boo Radley.  According to Maycomb lore and the children's vivid imaginations, Boo is a "malevolent phantom" (15) often blamed for the unexplained bad things that happened in town from time to time.  Boo ran with the wrong gang when he was a kid and got into trouble one night.  Instead of sending him to an asylum or locking him up in the courthouse jail, Boo's father took him home on the promise that Boo would cause no more trouble.  Since then Boo remained shut in his house while rumors swirled about his mental state and his legend grew.  Although Atticus urges the children to leave the Radley house, now occupied by Boo, his mother, and his brother, Nathan, Jem, Dill, and Scout succumb to their curiosity.  The chapter ends with Dill daring Jem to run inside the Radley's fence and touch the house.  Jem takes the dare.

Chapter 2: The summer has ended with Dill returning to Meridian and Scout starting her first day of school.  Miss Caroline, Scout's first grade teacher, scolds Scout because she already knows how to read.  "Your father does not know how to teach" (24) Miss Caroline pronounces of Atticus.  She forbids Scout from reading with Atticus and begins the year upset with, perhaps, her smartest student.  Miss Caroline is new to Maycomb so she doesn't know any of the students, their families, or their family's eccentricities.  Determined to help her learn Maycomb's ways and egged on by her fellow students, Scout offers Miss Caroline pointers on how to get along with folks such as Walter Cunningham. 

Miss Caroline offers a quarter to Walter (whose father's name is also Walter Cunningham) who did not bring a lunch to school with him.  When Walter refuses to take the quarter but Miss Caroline insists, Scout interjects, "…you'll get to know all the county folks after a while.  The Cunninghams never took anything they can't pay back—no church baskets and not scrip stamps.  Thy never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have.  They don't have much, but they get along on it" (27).  As she was with the fact that Scout already reads, Miss Caroline is not pleased with Scout's imprudent behavior.  Scout describes her reaction: "Miss Caroline stood stock still, then grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back to her desk.  ‘Jean Louis, I've had about enough of you this morning,' she said.  ‘You're starting out on the wrong foot in every way, my dear" (28).  She pats Scout's hands with a ruler and sends Scout to stand in the corner.  The chapter ends with Scout and her class filing out to lunch at the sound of the noon bell.

Chapter 3: Terribly upset by the poor impression she made on Miss Caroline, Scout grabs Walter Cunningham and starts a fight.  Jem stops the fight and invites Walter over to the Finch house for lunch.  Walter agrees and the three of them make their way home.  Calpurnia prepares a nice lunch for the family and gives Walter syrup on his request.  Walter pours syrup all over his food and Scout, never one to hold her tongue, asks him "what in the sam hill he's doing" (30).  Angry at Scout for reproaching an invited guest in such a manner, Calpurnia summons Scout to the kitchen and says, "'There's some folks who don't eat like us,' she whispered fiercely, ‘but you ain't called on to contradict ‘em at the table when they don't.  That boy's yo' comp'ny and if he wants to eat up the tablecloth you let him, you hear?" (31). With this incident, Scout gets one of her first lessons in manners and humility when faced with people who are different from her.

The three children return to school.  Scout arrives to find Miss Caroline in horror over a "cootie" in Burris Ewell's hair.  The Ewells, who live behind the town dump, are the poorest people in the area. Bob Ewell, Burris' father, drinks up the money from their welfare check and let's the children run wild.  They do not eat or bathe properly and they rarely attend school.  One of Miss Caroline's pupils explains, "'He's one of the Ewells, ma'am…Whole school's full of ‘em.  They come first day every year and then leave.  The truant lady gets ‘em here ‘cause she threatens ‘em with the sheriff, but she's give up tryin' to hold ‘em.  She reckons she's carried out the law just getting' their names on the roll and runnin' ‘em here the first day.  You're supposed to mark ‘em absent the rest of the year…" (33). Miss Caroline shows concern for Burris but he angrily storms out of the classroom never to be seen in school that year again. 

Miserable, Scout returns home from her first day of school and complains to Atticus that they're no longer allowed to read together.  She argues that she should never have to go to school but Atticus encourages her to compromise: "If you'll concede the necessity of going to school, we'll go on reading every night just as we always have.  Is it a bargain?" (38). Scout enthusiastically agrees to continue going to school and Atticus holds his end of the deal by reading the newspaper to Scout and Jem before bedtime that night.

Chapter 4: Scout describes her first year of school as "an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics" (39).  Quite bored with school, Scout anticipates her afternoons playing her yard with Jem.  Jem, however, leaves school thirty minutes after Scout so Scout walks herself home passed the Radley house.  One day, as she passes the house, she notices something shiny in the knot of an old oak tree that stands on the border of the Radley property.  Scout examines the object and realizes it is a two pieces of chewing gum.  Scout takes the gum and tells Jem about the incident when he arrives home.  Scared by the fact that Scout found the gum on the Radley lot, Jem orders Scout to spit out the gum. 

On the last day of school, Scout and Jem pass the oak tree together and find a shiny package made of gum wrappers containing two, polished Indian-head pennies.  The children wonder who left the pennies in the tree but decide to take the pennies until they can ask their friends at school next Fall if they'd lost the pennies.  Scout has no idea who placed the pennies in the tree but Jem seems to have an idea. 

Dill arrives shortly from Meridian.  As usual, the three friends play act stories that they have read.  This summer, however, they find themselves bored with the stories they've already done and want to try something new.  Dill, still fascinated by the legend of Boo Radley, wants to act out Boo's story.  The three take roles: Scout plays Mrs. Radley, Dill plays Mr. Radley, and Jem gets to play Boo.  For several days the threesome play "Boo Radley" in their front yard, acting out the scene in which Boo stabs his father with a pair of scissors.  The neighbors notice the game and alert Atticus.  Atticus takes the scissors away and scolds the children who lie by saying they are not talking about the Radley's.  Atticus leaves the situation alone but the children's enthusiasm about the game wanes. 

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Chapter 5: Chapter Five opens with Scout lamenting over Jem and Dill's growing relationship, "Dill was becoming something of a trial anyway, following Jem about.  He had asked me earlier in the summer to marry him, then promptly forgot about it…I beat him up twice but it did no good, he only grew closer to Jem" (48).  To occupy her time while Jem and Dill spent their afternoons in their treehouse, Scout turned to her neighbor, Miss Maudie.  A kind and patient woman, Maudie also had her own eccentricities.  Unlike most other proper Maycomb ladies, Maudie spent most of ...

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