Name ______________________________________ Period ____________ Date ___________________
TKAM: Chapters 21-27 Quote Analysis
Directions: Select TWO of the following quotes/series of quotes to analyze. For BOTH quotes/series of
quotes, analyze the impact of what is being said on the story, including character, plot, setting, and
theme. How/why are these words important to the story?
Character: How does the quote develop a character?
Plot: What part of the plot is this? Is it an essential episode? What is revealed through this?
Setting: How does the quote demonstrate the importance or impact of the setting?
Theme: What theme is revealed through this quote?
A. After the jury returns a guilty verdict, Atticus says to Jem, “I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve
done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it—seems that
only children weep” (Lee 285).
B. Miss Maudie tries to make the kids feel better about the verdict by explaining to them one of
her thoughts: “…Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who
can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we’re making a
step—it’s just a baby step, but it’s a step” (Lee 289).
C. Atticus tells Jem, “See if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred
of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with… So if spitting in my face and threatening
me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take” (Lee 292).
D.
Atticus says to Jem, “If you had been on that jury, son, and eleven other boys like you, Tom
would be a free man. So far, nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process.
Those are twelve reasonable men in everyday life, Tom’s jury, but you saw something come
between them and reason. You saw the same thing that night in front of the jail. When that
crew went away, they didn’t go as reasonable men, they went because we were there. There’s
something in our world that makes men lose their heads – they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In
our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins.
They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life” (Lee 295).
Atticus continues, “As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of
your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it – whenever a white man does
that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from,
that white man is trash” (Lee 295).
E.
Jem explains the Maycomb class system to Scout: “There’s four kinds of folks in the world.
There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in
the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes…The thing about it is,
our kind of folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the
Ewells hate and despise the colored folks” (Lee 302-303).
Scout replies, “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks” (Lee 304).
Jem replies, “That’s what I thought, too, when I was your age. If there’s just one kind of
folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their
way to despise each other?” (Lee 304).
F. Mr. Underwood, the town reporter, wrote a scathing editorial about Tom’s death, not caring
what anyone thought, and “he likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by
hunters and children” (Lee 323).
G. Scout came to the realization that “Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save
Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead
man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed” (Lee 323).
H.
Scout answers the question when her teacher, Miss Gates, asks what a democracy is by
saying: “Equal rights for all, special privileges for none” (Lee 328).
After a brief discussion of Hitler, Miss Gates goes on to explain that the difference
between America and Germany is that America is a democracy, and Germany is a dictatorship.
She says, “over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people
who are prejudiced” (Lee 329).
Scout is confused by her explanation. Later, Scout talks to Jem and explains that on the
night they left the courthouse she heard Miss Gates talking badly about African Americans,
saying that “it’s time somebody taught ‘em a lesson, they were getting’ way above themselves,
an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us” (Lee 331).
Scout doesn’t understand “how you can hate Hitler so bad an’ then turn around and be
ugly about folks right at home” (Lee 331).
Upon hearing this, Jem becomes furious and tells Scout that he “never want[s] to hear
about that courthouse again, ever, ever…” (Lee 331).
Atticus tries to explain to Scout why Jem got so upset. He says “…Jem was trying to forget
something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time
passed” (Lee 331).