Comprehensive Study Notes: To Kill a Mockingbird
The Origins of the Finch Family and the Town of Maycomb
The history of the Finch family begins with Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall, England, who was a Methodist. Driven by religious persecution in England, Simon traveled to Philadelphia, Jamaica, and Mobile before settling on the banks of the Alabama River, approximately miles above Saint Stephens. Disregarding his teacher John Wesley's strictures against human chattels, Simon purchased three slaves to establish Finch’s Landing, a self-sufficient homestead. The men of the family traditionally remained on the Landing to grow cotton, a practice that continued until the twentieth century. This tradition ended when Atticus Finch moved to Montgomery to read law and his younger brother, John Hale Finch, went to Boston to study medicine. Their sister Alexandra remained at the Landing after marrying a taciturn man. Atticus eventually returned to Maycomb, the seat of Maycomb County, located miles east of the Landing, to practice law. His first two clients, members of the Haverford family, were the last persons hanged in the local jail after they murdered a blacksmith in front of three witnesses and refused to plead guilty to second-degree murder.
Maycomb is described as a tired, old town where red slop streets and sagging courthouses reflect the sluggish pace of life during the Depression era. People moved slowly, and for many, there was no money to buy anything and nowhere outside the county to see. Despite the poverty, a vague optimism persisted, bolstered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural promise that the only thing to fear was fear itself. Atticus lived on the main residential street with his children, Jeremy (Jem) and Jean Louise (Scout), and their cook, Calpurnia. Scout and Jem's mother, a Graham from Montgomery, died of a sudden heart attack when Scout was years old. Calpurnia, a nearsighted woman with bones like bed slats, served as a stern but maternal figure in the household, winning every battle with Scout because Atticus always took her side.
The Arrival of Dill and the Legend of Boo Radley
The summer Scout was nearly and Jem was nearly , they met Charles Baker Harris, known as Dill. Dill, who was nearly , was from Meridian, Mississippi, and was staying with his aunt, Miss Rachel Haverford. Dill was a source of fascination; he had snow-white hair, wore blue linen shorts, and had seen the movie Dracula. As the children played in their treehouse between two giant chinaberry trees, they became obsessed with the Radley Place, three doors to the south. The house was once white but had darkened to slate-gray, with rain-rotted shingles and a picket fence. According to neighborhood legend, the house was inhabited by Arthur "Boo" Radley, a malevolent phantom.
Boo Radley’s history began years earlier when he joined a rowdy group from Old Sarum. After being arrested for locking a beadle named Mr. Conner in an outhouse, Boo was confined to his home by his father, a foot-washing Baptist who believed that any pleasure was a sin. Boo remained unseen for years until, at age , he allegedly stabbed his father in the leg with scissors while cutting items from The Maycomb Tribune. After his father’s death, Boo's elder brother Nathan returned from Pensacola to take charge of the house. Jem, influenced by the stories of Miss Stephanie Crawford, described Boo as a -foot-tall monster with a jagged scar and yellow teeth who ate raw squirrels. Dill dared Jem to touch the Radley house, eventually betting him a copy of The Gray Ghost. Jem finally ran and slapped the house, and the children thought they saw a tiny movement of an inside shutter.
Formal Education and the Customs of Maycomb
Scout’s formal education began with Miss Caroline Fisher, a -year-old teacher from Winston County who appeared like a peppermint drop. Miss Caroline’s attempt to introduce new teaching methods, which Jem mistakenly called the Dewey Decimal System, met with resistance from a class of children immune to imaginative literature about cats. Conflict arose when Miss Caroline discovered Scout could read fluently and write in cursive—skills Scout had acquired unconsciously by sitting in Atticus's lap and watching Calpurnia. Miss Caroline ordered Scout to tell Atticus to stop teaching her, as it would interfere with her reading progress.
Through school interactions, the children learn about the socio-economic strata of Maycomb. Walter Cunningham, a boy with hookworms and no shoes, refused to accept a quarter from Miss Caroline for lunch because his family did not take what they could not pay back. Atticus explains that the Cunninghams are poor farmers who pay for legal services with stovewood, hickory nuts, and smilax because the economic crash hit them hardest. In contrast, the Ewells, represented by Burris Ewell, are described as the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations. Burris was the filthiest human Scout had ever seen, appearing only on the first day of school to satisfy truant authorities. Atticus teaches Scout that the law is bent for the Ewells to allow them to hunt out of season so their children won't starve when their father spends relief checks on whiskey. Atticus introduces Scout to the concept of perspective, stating that one never understands a person until they climb into their skin and walk around in it.
The Secret Gifts and the Night at the Radley Fence
Throughout the next year, Scout and Jem discovered treasures in a knot-hole of a live oak tree on the edge of the Radley lot. The gifts included Wrigley’s Double-Mint gum, two polished Indian-head pennies dated and , gray twine, two soap figurines carved to look like Jem and Scout, a tarnished spelling medal, and a broken pocket watch on a chain with an aluminum knife. Jem realized these were gifts from Boo Radley. However, the mystery was abruptly cut off when Nathan Radley filled the hole with cement, claiming the tree was dying despite Atticus’s observation that it appeared perfectly healthy. Jem stood on the porch in tears, realizing Nathan had blocked Boo’s only connection to the outside world.
Dill's second summer in Maycomb culminated in a night mission to peer through the Radley's loose shutter. The children crawled under a wire fence into the Radley's garden, dodging collard greens that swished in the moonlight. After Jem heaved Dill up to the window, they saw the shadow of a man with a hat. The children fled as a shotgun blast from Nathan Radley roared through the neighborhood. Jem lost his pants in the high wire fence. To avoid suspicion, Dill claimed they were playing strip poker with matches by Miss Rachel's fishpool. Later that night, Jem returned to the fence alone to retrieve his pants. He found them folded across the fence and crudely mended, as if someone knew he would return.
The Incident of the Mad Dog and Atticus’s Secret Talent
Atticus was perceived by his children as feeble because he was nearly and wore glasses. Unlike other fathers, he did not hunt, fish, or play football. However, one Saturday in February, a liver-colored bird dog named Tim Johnson, owned by Mr. Harry Johnson, wandered down the street showing symptoms of rabies. Calpurnia alerted the neighborhood and called Atticus. Sheriff Heck Tate arrived with a heavy rifle but admitted he could not hit a target at that distance with the Radley house directly behind the dog. Tate handed the gun to Atticus, who, despite not having held a gun in years, shot the dog dead with a single bullet.
Miss Maudie Atkinson revealed to the children that Atticus’s nickname was "Ol’ One-Shot" because he was the deadest shot in Maycomb County in his youth. Jem and Scout were shocked to learn their father complained about wasting ammunition if he hit only out of doves. Miss Maudie explained that Atticus put his gun down because he realized God had given him an unfair advantage over living things. Jem, filled with a new respect, declared that Atticus is a gentleman and refused to brag about the talent at school.
Mrs. Dubose and the Definition of Courage
Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose was a vicious, elderly neighbor who insulted the Finch children every time they passed. She especially attacked Atticus for defending Tom Robinson, calling him a "nigger-lover." In a fit of rage, Jem used Scout’s new twirling baton to destroy Mrs. Dubose's camellia bushes. As punishment, Atticus ordered Jem to read to her every afternoon for a month. Scout accompanied him to the dark, oppressive house where they read Ivanhoe. During these sessions, Mrs. Dubose would have fits where she became unresponsive and drooled. An alarm clock signaled the end of their reading time each day.
A few weeks after the punishment ended, Mrs. Dubose died. Atticus revealed that she was a morphine addict who had become dependent on the drug as a pain-killer. Her goal was to break the addiction before she died so she could leave the world "beholden to nothing and nobody." The fit-like states were actually withdrawal symptoms, and the reading sessions served as a distraction. Atticus wanted Jem to see that real courage is not a man with a gun, but when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. Mrs. Dubose, weighing only pounds, won her battle. She left Jem a single white camellia, a Snow-on-the-Mountain, as a peace offering.
The Trial of Tom Robinson: Conflict and Testimony
As Atticus prepared to defend Tom Robinson, a Black man accused of raping Mayella Ewell, the community’s racial tensions intensified. When Atticus was called away to an emergency session of the state legislature, Calpurnia took Jem and Scout to her church, First Purchase African M.E. Church. Paid for by the first earnings of freed slaves, the church was used for worship on Sundays and by white gamblers on weekdays. Scout noticed that the church had no organ, piano, or hymn-books because most of the congregation could not read. Instead, they practiced "linin'," where Zeebo, the garbage collector and Calpurnia's son, read a line and the congregation sang it back. Reverend Sykes collected ten dollars for Tom’s wife, Helen, by refusing to open the church doors until the amount was raised.
Aunt Alexandra moved into the Finch house shortly after, intending to provide a feminine influence for Scout. She was obsessed with the caste system of Maycomb and believes that the longer a family has lived on a plot of ground, the finer they are. During the trial, a mob of men from Old Sarum, led by Walter Cunningham’s father, confronted Atticus at the jailhouse where Tom Robinson was being held. Scout, Jem, and Dill followed Atticus, and Scout’s innocent conversation with Mr. Cunningham about his son and his "entailment" broke the mob’s tension, causing them to leave. The children then watched the trial from the colored balcony with Reverend Sykes. Heck Tate testified that no doctor was called and that Mayella’s injuries were primarily on the right side of her face. Bob Ewell testified rudely, but Atticus proved he was left-handed. Tom Robinson, who has a withered left arm from a childhood accident with a cotton gin, testified that Mayella had made advances toward him and that he had run away in fear when her father saw them.
The Final Tragedy and the Revelation of Boo
Despite Atticus proving Tom’s innocence, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Tom was later shot times and killed while trying to escape from Enfield Prison Farm. Mr. B.B. Underwood wrote an editorial comparing Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds. Bob Ewell, seeking revenge for his public humiliation during the trial, began harrassing Helen Robinson and attempted to break into Judge Taylor’s house. On Halloween, as Jem and Scout walked home through the woods from a school pageant where Scout played a ham, Bob Ewell attacked them. He crushed Scout’s costume and broke Jem’s arm. A man emerged from the shadows to rescue them, carrying Jem home.
Inside the house, Heck Tate discovered Bob Ewell dead under a tree with a kitchen knife in his ribs. The rescuer was revealed to be Arthur "Boo" Radley, a pale, thin man with feathery hair and colorless eyes. Atticus initially believed Jem killed Ewell in self-defense, but Heck Tate insisted that Ewell fell on his own knife. Tate argued that dragging Boo Radley into the limelight for his heroic act would be a sin, as it would be like "shooting a mockingbird." Scout agreed, and she walked Boo home, standing on his porch to view the neighborhood from his perspective for the first and only time. Returning home, she found Atticus reading Jem's copy of The Gray Ghost, and she fell asleep to the sound of his voice.