TKAM Chapter 11 Quotes

To Kill A Mockingbird Chapter 11 Quotes

Amanda Bao

Vidya Ganapathy

Leonardo Tang

1. "Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you?"

The camellias represent the prejudices that cannot be brushed off easily. Jem's action of cutting off the tops of the flowers shows his immaturity in thinking that prejudice can be rid of so easily. Evil can only be dug out from the roots. One must get to the source of the problem, not just skim over the top looking at it. Problems go much deeper than that.

2. "Scout, when summer comes you'll have to keep your head about far worse things...it's not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down - well all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you'll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn't let you down. This case, Tom Robinson's case, is something that goes to the essence of a man's conscience - Scout, I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn't try to help that man."

This is telling Scout that they need to do the best they can do in the difficult time. This is telling her that she is not to let what other people say get into her head and get to her. Sometimes people say things that aren't the nicest of things, and many times they say those things just to make them feel better about themselves, sorta like a self-esteem booster. This quote also shows coming of age. As the children mature, they will begin to truly see the meaning of Atticus's actions and the unfairness that most of their community shows.

This represents conscience. His conscience is his inner sense of right and wrong, his morals. If Atticus had not taken this case into his hands and had denied it, he would have been too ashamed to exert any control over anything, much less his own children. His conscience would have caught up to him and he wouldn't have been able to live with himself like that.

3. "Scout, n*****-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything - like snot-nose. It's hard to explain - ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves."

At the time, segregation was the law. Scout asking Atticus to define the term for her shows that she, in her childish innocence, does not, at this point, recognize the prejudice around her.

4. "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

In this quote, Atticus wants to show Jem and scout that courage is more than just somebody who has power or a weapon. He wants to show them that courage is when somebody fights for something they believe in rather than take the easy way out and give in to it. Like Mrs.Dubose fighting the morphine.

Mrs.Dubose is also a representation of how there can be both good and bad in everybody. She is a show of Maycomb's major flaw - racism, but she also possesses "real courage."

End