To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Student Reading Response Journal Notes
• S
Setting in
To Kill a Mockingbird
• MAYCOMB:
is small, everyone knows what goes on there, and
there's rarely any excitement. Scout describes it as being an old,
humid, sleepy and laidback town where everyone knows each
others business.
The differences in social status are explored largely through the
overcomplicated social hierarchy of Maycomb, the ins and outs of
which constantly baffle the children. The relatively well-off Finches
stand near the top of Maycomb’s social hierarchy, with most of the
townspeople beneath them. Ignorant country farmers like the
Cunninghams lie below the townspeople, and the white trash
Ewells rest below the Cunninghams. But the black community in
Maycomb, despite its abundance of admirable qualities, squats
below even the Ewells. Maycomb is a racist community.
Setting in
To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Radley Home: the house stands out from
everything else in the town ... there are all sorts
of rumors about it and kids were thought to
never go inside. It also signifies the odd and
unknown that the society tries so hard to push
aside and sort of isolate. And Scout comes as a
character that will break all rules and disobey and
in the end be the one person that did the right
thing. So in general, the house is a turning point
in the book since it bring not just mystery but
also answers to questions that people avoided for
so long.
Setting in
To Kill a Mockingbird
• The School: Scout was really looking forward to it.. "I
never looked forward more to anything in my life." is
what she recalls. She had spent a lot of time spying on
the schoolyard from the tree house getting to know
the games and their other activities.
• School is filled with rules that Scout does not like. Miss
Caroline asked Scout to stop having Atticus read to her.
• She was punished for sticking up for Walter
Cunningham.
• She wants to fight students at school for calling Atticus
names due to the trial of Tom Robinson.
Setting in
To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Courthouse: the courthouse was
segregated, the African Americans had to sit in
the upper level where it was hotter and the
whites were on the main level, the courthouse
was very loud and crowded with people from
the town. It is significant to the theme and
plot in the novel. It is where the trial of Tom
Robinson takes place.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Scout Finch: Scout (Jean Louise Finch)
•
The narrator and main character who begins her story at almost six years old. A
rebellious tomboy, Scout has a fierce disposition toward any who challenge her,
but at heart she believes in the goodness of people. Scout reacts to the terrible
events of the book without losing hope in humanity.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Jem (Jeremy Finch)
• Scout's older brother, who is nearly ten at the beginning of the story. Jem
is quieter and more reserved than his sister, and has very high standards
and expectations for people. When these expectations are not met, Jem
has a difficult time resolving his feelings.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Atticus Finch
•
The father of Scout and Jem, Atticus is a lawyer and an extremely morally upright man who
strives to deal with everyone fairly. Atticus is sometimes overly optimistic, but his unshakable
hope in mankind and self-created role as the town 'do-gooder' sustain him. Atticus' wife died
when Scout was very small, and he has raised his children only with the assistance of
Calpurnia, his black housekeeper and cook.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Calpurnia
• A black woman who works as the Finch family's cook and housekeeper.
She is one of the many motherly figures in Scout's life and one of the few
who can negotiate between the very separate black and white worlds of
Maycomb.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Dill (Charles Baker Harris)
•
A friend of the Finch children, who is a little older than Scout, quite short for his age, has an
active imagination, and exhibits a strong sense of adventure. He initiates the first expeditions
toward the Radley house, and is Scout's best friend. His family life is less than ideal, and he
tends to resort to escapism when confronted with difficult situations. Dill spends summers
with his aunt, who lives next door to the Finch family.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Bob Ewell
•
An evil, ignorant man who belongs to the lowest substratum of Maycomb society.
He lives with his nine motherless children in a shack near the town dump.
Evidence from the trial suggests that he caught his daughter kissing Tom,
proceeded to beat her, and then encouraged her to claim Tom raped her. He drinks
heavily and spends his relief checks on whiskey rather than food for his family. Bob
holds a strong grudge against Atticus and attacks his children at the end of the
novel.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mayella Ewell
• The oldest of the many Ewell children, at age nineteen. She lives a
miserable and lonely existence, despised by whites and prohibited from
befriending blacks. However, she breaks a social taboo by trying to seduce
Tom, then reacts with cowardice by accusing him of rape and perjuring
against him in court.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Boo Radley
•
A recluse who never emerges from his house. As a young boy, he was in trouble
with the police, and his strictly religious and reclusive parents have kept him
indoors ever since. A prisoner in his home, he stabbed his father with scissors
once, and no one has seen him since. The town has developed a myth that he is an
insane monster who wanders around at night peering into people's windows.
Throughout the book, he lives with his brother, who is highly controlling.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Reverend Sykes
• The reverend for the all-black congregation, First Purchase
African M.E. church, which Scout and Jem visit one day with
Calpurnia.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mrs. Dubose
•
A mean, sick, very old woman who lives near the Finch family. Jem unknowingly
assists her with her heroic attempt to conquer her morphine addiction, a fight that
wins her Atticus's highest praises.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Stephanie Crawford:
Is the neighborhood gossip who claimed that she once saw Boo Radley from her bedroom
standing outside of her cleaned window one night. Crawford is one of the first on the scene
after a loud gunshot is heard behind the Radley house. Because she is the neighborhood
gossip, it is unwise to think of anything that she says as true, because most of the time it is
not true at all. She is a friend of Alexandra Finch. She lets Miss Maudie live with her when
Miss Maudie's house burns down., supposedly in order to steal Miss Maudie's Lane cake
recipe. She is thrilled to pass on gossip to the kids about Boo Radley.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Maudie Atkinson
• A kind, cheerful, and witty neighbor and trusted friend of
Scout's, who also upholds a strong moral code and helps the
children gain perspective on the events surrounding the trial.
She also loves gardening.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Walter Cunningham
•
A poor farmer who is among the "Sarum bunch," a crowd which assembles near
the town jail the night before Tom's trial in order to start a lynching. He is deeply
moved by Scout's friendly words when she tries to diffuse the situation, and as a
result leads the rest of the men in going home. Ever after, he respects the Finch
family greatly
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Miss Caroline Fisher
•
Is Scout's first grade teacher and is new to Maycomb, Alabama and its ways. She
attempts to teach the first grade class using a new standardized system which she
learned from taking certain college courses. She is upset that Scout is far more
advanced in reading than the rest of her class, and doesn't like that she is receiving
lessons from her father, Atticus. In an effort to standardize the class she forbids
Scout from reading. She has good intentions, but proves quite incompetent as a
teacher. When Scout tells Miss Fisher that she shamed a student by giving him
lunch money, she raps Scout's palms with a ruler (a punishment unheard of in
Maycomb). She is also very sensitive and gets emotionally hurt quite easily, as
seen when Burris Ewell yells at her, After the Burris Ewell incident, Miss Caroline is
seldom seen and soon forgotten.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mr. Underwood:
• Mr. Underwood is the editor, writer, and printer for The
Maycomb Tribune. Although he is a bigot, he hides in his
office next to the jailhouse to protect Atticus and Tom
Robinson from the Old Sarum mob that tries to take Tom from
the jail to lynch him.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Miss Caroline Fisher
•
Is Scout's first grade teacher and is new to Maycomb, Alabama and its ways. She
attempts to teach the first grade class using a new standardized system which she
learned from taking certain college courses. She is upset that Scout is far more
advanced in reading than the rest of her class, and doesn't like that she is receiving
lessons from her father, Atticus. In an effort to standardize the class she forbids
Scout from reading. She has good intentions, but proves quite incompetent as a
teacher. When Scout tells Miss Fisher that she shamed a student by giving him
lunch money, she raps Scout's palms with a ruler (a punishment unheard of in
Maycomb). She is also very sensitive and gets emotionally hurt quite easily, as
seen when Burris Ewell yells at her, After the Burris Ewell incident, Miss Caroline is
seldom seen and soon forgotten.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mr. Underwood:
• Mr. Underwood is the editor, writer, and printer for The
Maycomb Tribune. Although he is a bigot, he hides in his
office next to the jailhouse to protect Atticus and Tom
Robinson from the Old Sarum mob that tries to take Tom from
the jail to lynch him.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mr. Radley:
• Mr. Radley was Boo and Nathan's father, a very religious, strict
man who walked to town and back home once a day and
never spoke to anyone when they greeted him. He died when
Jem and Scout were a few years younger, but Boo didn't even
come out of the house then.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Tom Robinson:
• Tom is a respectable, humble, kind Negro whom Atticus is defending
against the charge that he raped Mayella Ewell, daughter of Bob
Ewell. Atticus knows he will lose because Tom is black, but he also
knows that Tom is innocent and that he must defend him. Tom was
only trying to help Mayella because no one else would, but she
made advances that he refused and her father saw them. She
claimed that Tom raped her and beat her, but there was no way he
could have done it. All of her bruises were on the right side of her
face, but Tom's left hand was a withered and useless appendage he'd
caught in a cotton gin as a child. Tom was sent to a work prison after
his conviction and Atticus was expecting a new trial soon, but Tom
was shot trying to escape the prison before Atticus could get him out
of jail.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Aunt Alexandra:
• Alexandra is Atticus' sister who lives with her husband at Finch
Landing, the old homestead. She is constantly nagging Atticus
about how he raises Scout because she's a tomboy.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Francis Hancock:
• Francis is Scout and Jem's cousin. They see Francis at
Christmas when they go visit their Aunt Alexandra at Finch's
Landing, but they don't really like him very much. The
Christmas after Atticus took on the Tom Robinson case, Scout
beat Francis up for saying mean things about Atticus, and her
Uncle Jack whipped her for it before he heard her side of
things.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Heck Tate:
• Heck is the Maycomb County sheriff who hands over his gun
to Atticus when confronted with a rabid dog. He's also one of
the men in the group who comes to talk to Atticus about the
danger of having Tom Robinson locked up in the Maycomb
County jail. He didn't want to be responsible if Tom got
lynched.
Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mr. Dolphus Raymond:
• Mr. Raymond is understood to be a chronic alcoholic. He
comes through town bobbing and weaving and drinks from a
brown paper bag. He is wealthy, owns one whole side of the
riverbank and is from an old family, but lives by himself with
his colored woman and their mixed children. When Scout and
Dill leave the courtroom because Dill is so upset, they meet
Mr. Raymond and discover that he doesn't drink whiskey from
a paper sack -- it's Coke. He does it so that people will believe
that alcoholism is why he lives the way he does rather than
face the fact that he lives with colored people because he
wants to.
Symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mockingbird
• In this story of innocents destroyed by evil, the “mockingbird”
comes to represent the idea of innocence. Thus, to kill a
mockingbird is to destroy innocence. Throughout the book, a
number of characters (Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill, Boo Radley,
Mr. Raymond) can be identified as mockingbirds—innocents
who have been injured or destroyed through contact with
evil.
Symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Toys
• The toys represents a way in which the novel can refer back
to itself for continuity's sake--much in the same way the story
refers back "to time past."
Symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Watch
• The pocket watch that Jem and Scout find symbolizes the
passing of time throughout the book, and also how Scout and
Jem lose their innocence.
Symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Old Oak Tree:
• Oak tree: It represents how Boo had an emptiness inside of
him that made him feel detached, but offering items in the
tree was like offering his trust to the kids. He was sharing his
past by giving them the various items. When Mr. Radley
covered it up and said it was dying (even though it wasn't)
blocked off Boo from the world.