Scout

Scout is the narrator of the story. Her full name is “Jean Louise Finch.” She is six when the story begins.

She is very smart - - she can already read and write when she starts school. She also has a BIG vocabulary.

She reads with her father every night. Her mother died when she was only 2 years old.

Atticus Atticus is Scout’s father,

and he is a lawyer.

He speaks to Jem and Scout like adults.

Over and over, it is clear that he tells the children the truth . . .

he tells Jem he shouldn’t have said he was sorry about Mrs. Dubose’s flowers if he wasn’t sorry

he tells Uncle Jack that he shouldn’t make up stories and divert Scout; he should have answered her question

Calpurnia Calpurnia is the African American cook for the Finch family.

Calpurnia is trusted and valued by Atticus.

She takes care of the home and the children.

She is the person who has taught Scout how to write in cursive by copying verses from the Bible.

Scout explains to her father that it is time to get rid of Calpurnia because Calpurnia is not fair to her and favors Jem.

Atticus tells Scout quite sternly that they could not make it one day without Calpurnia and they will not get rid of her.

Jem

Jem is four years older than Scout.

His full name is Jeremy Atticus Finch.

Jem plays, argues with, and watches over his little sister.

Maycomb The Finches live in a sleepy, slow Southern town in

Alabama during the Depression, the early 1930s.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the president, and he is famous for saying, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Under FDR’s “New Deal” program, America went back to work in the WPA - Works Progress Administration

The Radley Place

There is a very scary old house just a few doors down from the Finches home. It is closed up, but people live there.

There are many rumors about the “malevolent phantom,” named Boo Radley, who lives there.

Dill

Charles Baker Harris - - “Dill” - - is their playmate. He comes to Maycomb every summer and stays with his Aunt Rachel.

Dill has a BIG imagination, and Scout calls him their “pocket Merlin” -- an allusion to Merlin the magician from legends about King Arthur.

He is obsessed with meeting Boo Radley

The Ladies in the Community

Miss Rachel Haverford, Dill’s aunt

Miss Caroline Fisher, Scout’s teacher who uses the Dewey Decimal system of education

Miss Stephanie Crawford, the town gossip (“scold”)

Miss Maudie Atkinson, their neighbor who bakes cakes, loves her flowers, and is a friend to the children. She is honest and level-headed.

The Cunninghams The Cunninghams are farmers from “Old Sarum.”

They are poor but hardworking, honest, and proud. They do not accept charity.

Walter, the son, shows us their poverty when he does not wear shoes to school on the first day; however, he is clean, his shirt is ironed, and his pants are mended.

Walter “drowned” his meal in molasses when he ate lunch with Jem, Scout, and Atticus.

Walter has a very adult conversation about crops and cattle with Atticus - - which surprises Scout.

Scout asks Atticus why Mr. Cunningham brings them a bag of nuts, wood, and potatoes.

Atticus explains that the Cunninghams are poor because of their entailment so he cannot pay them with money.

The Ewells Burris Ewell is the boy who attends the first day of

school and then never attends during the school year.

Burris is very dirty, has lice in his hair, and uses loud, mean, bad language when he yells at Miss Caroline as he leaves school.

Atticus tells Scout that the Ewells are people, but they live like animals.

The Ewell father spends his welfare check on alcohol rather than on taking care of his eight children.

Fascination with Boo Radley

Dill dares Jem to run up and touch the Radley house; after much contemplation, Jem does it, and races away.

The children re-enact the life of Boo Radley in the yard and on the porch of the Finch home.

They try to send a message to Boo by putting a note on the end of a fishing pole and holding it up to the window.

Kids interest in Boo Jem rolls Scout in a tire that crashes into the front

step of the Radley home; Scout does not tell Jem and Dill that she could hear someone inside laughing.

They sneak into the yard at night at the end of the summer and try to look into the window. Mr. Radley comes out and shoots a rifle! Jem loses his pants on the fence as they race to escape from the Radley’s yard.

Fire!

Miss Maudie’s house burns down.

Miss Maudie is okay and is looking forward to building a smaller house and having a bigger yard where she can grow more flowers.

The kids are so intent on watching the neighbors fight the fire that they miss seeing Boo Radley come out of his house and put a blanket around Scout’s shoulders.

Atticus The kids think Atticus is too old to play football

and not able to do much. He wears glasses and is old.

However, they find out differently when a rabid dog is loose on their street.

Calpurnia calls the town telephone operator to reach Atticus and to warn people on their street to stay in doors; then she runs up the front steps of the Radley place to warn them, also.

The sheriff, Heck Tate, asks Atticus to shoot the rabid dog.

He does it!

Miss Maudie reveals that he was the best shot in Maycomb County.

They called him Ol’ One Shot

Mrs. Dubose Scout tells us in Chapter One that Mrs. Dubose is “pure

hell.” She is an elderly woman who yells mean things at them whenever they pass by her house.

Cecil Jacobs and cousin Francis have called Atticus a n*gger lover, but when Mrs. Dubose says it, that is TOO MUCH for Jem.

Jem looses his temper and destroys Mrs. Dubose’s flowers.

His consequence is that he has to read to Mrs. Dubose every day for TWO HOURS.

Courage

When Mrs. Dubose passes, Atticus tells them that they helped her overcome her addiction to morphine.

Mrs. Dubose is an old woman who didn’t have to overcome her addiction, but she chose to so she would not be beholden to anyone or anything on earth when she passed.

Calpurnia’s Church

Atticus has to go to Mobile, and Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to her church, First Purchase AME.

First Purchase is so-named because it was the first thing purchased with the money the African Amercian community earned after emancipation.

The church has many similarities and many differences.

experiences at Cal’s church

Lula expresses her opinion that Calpurnia should not have brought the white children to the black church.

The other church members hustle Lula away and welcome Jem and Scout.

Zeebo “lines” the hymns - - only a few of the black church members can read.

Rev. Sykes orders the doors locked until enough money is raised to help Helen Robinson. No one will give her work because her husband is on trial.

Aunt Alexandra Aunt Alexandra comes to Maycomb to “help” over the

summer while the trial is going on.

Aunt Alexandra is very caught up in the importance of family background. She tries to impress upon Jem and Scout that they are from a very good family!

She is very upset that the children went to Cal’s church.

Aunt Alexandra wants Scout to act like a lady and for the children to live up to their family name.

Aunt Alexandra’s character is a foil to Scout’s character.

The trial is getting closer Atticus tells the kids that things are going to be

worse during the summer - - which is when the trial will take place.

Men come to their house to say they are worried about the Old Sarum folks going to the jail because “someone” has been moved to the town jail.

Atticus says he is not worried, but at bedtime he takes the car and an extension cord and light bulb and leaves.

The Jail Jem, Scout and Dill go to

Atticus’ office, but he isn’t there. They find him at the jail with a big group of men. Scout rushes in to say “hi!” to her father, but then she realizes that these men are strangers and they smell like alcohol.

The men are there to get Tom Robinson. They plan to lynch him.

Entailments are not good.

Scout recognizes Walter Cunningham’s father and starts talking to him.

Her words make Mr. Cunningham put himself in the shoes of Atticus Finch and makes Mr. Cunningham realize what the mob is doing.

Mr. Cunningham tells the mob of men to head home, and they all leave.

The Trial

Atticus is representing a black man named Tom Robinson who is accused of raping a white woman.

The Scottsboro Boys

Tom’s case has similarities to a real trial where nine black men were accused of raping two white women. This case occurred during Harper Lee’s childhood.

The accusation

Bob Ewell says Tom Robinson raped his daughter, Mayella.

Today the trial begins.