Chapter oneTo Kill a Mockingbird

The Start of it all

There are two important points at the beginning of the novel

first, Scout is the first-person narrator who tells the story from her point of view

second, she is looking back at events that happened when she was a child

What are the advantages of telling a story through a child’s eyes?

Are there any disadvantages to telling the story through the eyes of a child?

Family background and family characteristics are very important in this society.

Notice how the Haverfords are classified as stupid and stubborn. “ . . . but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jack*ss.” (Lee 5)

Atticus & Finch family

What do you think about putting people in categories in this way?

Maycomb is a place where everyone knows everyone else, with a population that changes very little.

Does that “fact” play into categorizing people?

Do we categorize people here at RHS?

Scout’s description of Maycomb makes us see a small, tired town, where life is slow and little happens.

The time period is the Depression in America, when the South in particular suffered great poverty.

There is only a vague hope that the newly elected President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, will help things improve.

Setting

Her physical description: “Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was as wide as a bed slat and twice as hard.”

Calpurnia

“She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, . . . and calling me home when I wasn’t ready to come.”

Scout says that Calpurnia is tyrannical with a wide and hard hand.

What does this tell you about the way Calpurnia treats Scout?

“Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side.”

Does Atticus share Scout’s view of Calpurnia?

Dill is only seven, but he earns the children’s respect and acceptance because he has seen films like Dracula, and his lively imagination is a great asset in their make-believe games.

Dill

Note how Dill reacts when Scout asks about his father:

“ . . . I asked Dill where his father was: ‘You ain’t said anything about him.’

‘I haven’t got one.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘No . . .’

‘Then if he’s not dead you’ve got one, haven’t you?’

Dill blushed and Jem told me to hush . . . . “

Is Dill lying when he says he hasn’t got one?

Why does he reply like this?

The people of Maycomb regard the Radleys as strange because they don’t behave as the rest of the community does.

They don’t visit neighbors or join in local activities.

The Radley Place and its mysterious inhabitant are looked at with fear and superstition.

The Radley’s

From what you know about Maycomb, are you surprised that they react like this?

We see the importance of religion to this community. Going to church is Maycomb’s principal recreation; Mr. Radley took the word of God as his only law; the only films ever shown in Maycomb are Jesus ones.

Church & religion

Does religion influence the way characters behave toward each other?

What do you think is the author’s view of religion as practiced in Maycomb?

Mr. Radley’s way of keeping his son out of trouble is to keep him away from the outside world.

What do you think of the way he treats his son?

The Radley’s

Mr. Radley’s death“‘There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into,’ murmured Calpurnia, and she spat meditatively into the yard. We looked at her in surprise, for Calpurnia rarely commented on the ways of white people.” (12)

What does Calpurnia’s comment tell you about the relationship between African-Americans and whites?

Boo’s “incarceration”

Atticus tells Jem that the Radleys have a right to be left alone and that Boo isn’t kept chained to a bed, that there were other ways of making people into ghosts.

What do you think Atticus means?

“You’re scared.”

Jem is scared of the Radley Place, but it is a point of honor with him not to turn down a dare.

Dill taunts him with being afraid, like all the people in Maycomb, but Jem still hesitates and makes excuses.

Scout’s sneer makes him do it in the end.

Do you think the author, Harper Lee, makes the children’s private world vivid and realistic?

Is this the way kids talk and react to each other?

up next . . . Scout gets a lesson in manners