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Chapter 12

To Kill a Mocking Bird

Summary

  • Jem starts maturing and starts playing with Scout less
  • Dill does not show up this summer
  • Atticus is away for an emergency session of the state legislature
  • Atticus appears in a political cartoon that makes fun of him
  • Jem and Scout go with Calpurnia to her church
  • Scout learns that Tom Robinson is accused of raping Robert Ewell's daughter

Significant Quotes

"Overnight, it seemed Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he even told me what to do" (Lee 153).

By Harper Lee

Context: Jem is now twelve and his attitude toward Scout has changed. He now wants Scout to act more feminine.

Significance: Jem has now begun to start thinking like the other men in Maycomb. He stops seeing Scout as a sibling, but instead sees Scout as a girl.

Significant Quotes

"'Cal,' I asked, "why do you talk n*****-talk to the-to your folks when you know it's not right?' (Lee 167)".

Context: Scout, Calpurnia, and Jem are talking as they walk home for church. The children are confused by Calpurnia's use of both proper and southern English.

Significance: This highlights how naive the children are and how they find it hard to understand others. The children can not comprehend why Calpurnia would speak differently if she knew it was "wrong".

Chapters 12 and 13

Connection to Realism

This chapter contains many aspects of American Realism. This chapter focuses mainly on the lower class, in this case African Americans in the South. It also uses everyday speech patterns to imitate genuine conversations in this setting. It also tackles some of the difficulties and challenges of being African American in the South, highlighting ethical struggles and issues that we still struggle with today.

Gabriel Soekamto and Paula Low

Chapter 13

Summary

  • Aunt Alexandra is invited by Atticus to come live with them in Maycomb
  • She claims to be there so that the kids could have a "feminine influence", but she really wants to educate the kids on the importance of being a Finch
  • Aunt Alexandra does not find Calpurnia to be the best influence for a white young girl who has a reputation to uphold
  • Scout and Jem sees how welcoming Maycomb is for Aunt Alexandra
  • Atticus is forced by Aunt Alexandra to lecture Jem and Scout about the "gentle-breeding" of the Finch Family

Significant Quotes

"I never understood her preoccupation with heredity. Somewhere, I had received the impression that Finch Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was" (Lee 173).

This quote really demonstrates the Realism of this chapter and the Naturalist views that human behavior can be determined by the individual's environment or heredity. Aunt Alexandra was raised to be proper and to abide by the rules so that she could keep the good family name in place. Because Scout has not had the same lifestyle or restrictions on her actions, Aunt Alexandra felt the need to discipline her and to teach her the ways of being a Finch.

Connection to Realism

Context: Scout is making observations of her well-mannered and moral Aunt Alexandra while she was staying in Maycomb

Significance: Scout believed that a good family does the best they can with what they have while Aunt Alexandra believed that the history and reputation is what makes a good family. This shows that young Scout and her pure and innocent mind has a better and cleaner view of life and family while her Aunt only cares for the materialistic and reputation side of life.

Significant Quotes

"Aunt Alexandra had put him up to this, somehow . . . I felt his hand on the back of my head. 'Don't you worry about anything,' he said. 'It's not time to worry.' When I heard that, I knew he had come back to us . . . I know what he was trying to do, but Atticus was only a man. It takes a woman to do that kind of work" (178).

Context: Atticus was trying to educate the kids on the importance of keeping up the reputation of the Finch Family name and it upset Scout and Jem.

Significance: Atticus saw how upsetting it was for Scout and Jem to be told to be anything but themselves, and so Atticus could not uphold this idea that his family should have to change and it really shows Atticus's instinctual fatherly love for his children.

Questions

  • What do you think caused the change in Jem? What does this reveal about Jem's character and what might it foreshadow?

  • Do you think Scout's and Dill's love is genuine? Do you think they believe it's genuine love?

  • Do you think that Aunt Alexandra's actions and attitude is a bit extreme and shows a lack of care or emotion towards her family?

  • How do Aunt Alexandra and Atticus's view of society differ?
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