The children's attempts to connect with Boo evoke, again, the sense that children will be able to see Boo with more decency and sincerity than the rest of the populace. Underwood has been playing sniper backup from The Maycomb Tribune office. She appeared to have been beaten, and she said that she had been raped by Tom Robinson. The children's attempt to trace the main incident in the novel Jem's broken arm back to its roots, leads them to wonder whether it all began when Dill first arrived in Maycomb and became their friend, or whether the real origins lie deeper in their ancestral history and the chance events that brought the Finch family to Maycomb. The trial that appears in these chapters is often seen as some of the most pivotal scenes in the novel.
From those seats, the children are able to see the entire courtroom, so they will not miss a thing. However, Mayella begins to cry and refuses to answer any more questions. Atticus tells Jem that Mrs. The very religious Radley family stays indoors all day and rarely participates in community affairs, except during emergencies. The men told Atticus to get out of the way and Atticus, to scare them off, said something that might make the men think he had back up.
The scene outside the courthouse, before the initiation of the trial, resembles a picnic spot. Therefore, when Miss Caroline writes the alphabet on the board and Scout reads it through easily, then reads from her reader and from the local paper, Miss Caroline forbids Scout to let Atticus teach her to read anymore. The journey of this one individual against the mores of the entire group, though performed here in fear and on a dare, symbolically speaks toward events that will follow when Atticus defends Tom Robinson in court and Scout breaks up the threatening mob of townspeople. Aunt Alexandra believes the Finch name to be a proud one, and she wants Jem and Scout to believe the same. She also says that most of the rumors about him aren't true. She attempts to instill in Jem and Scout a pride in their family legacy.
Strength of character is the lesson in this chapter. Scout thinks maybe he's still alive. The next day, being a Sunday, is spent in Church, but in the evening Atticus declares that he is going out. At the start of Chapter 12, Jem has turned twelve years old, and he continues to grow farther apart from Scout. They sneak under a wire fence and go through a gate. Dill and Scout join him in this venture. Atticus goes to the jail with the intention of preventing a lynch mob from getting to Tom Robinson.
Jem decides to go back and get his pants late that night. A discussion is held over the forthcoming trial, and whether Tom Robinson is safe in their custody. Chapter 16 Aunt Alexandra is disapproving of the children having had a rendezvous in a jail in the middle of the night. He looked like he was expecting them. He notes that he felt bad for her, a statement that gets the entire courtroom into an uproar because, in Maycomb, a black man shouldn't be feeling sorry for a white woman.
He then ran for the sheriff. As soon as it's gone, the three children run as fast as they can back home, but Jem loses his pants in the gate. Of course, Atticus will hear none of it. As they watch, a group of men join Atticus and get around to talk to him. Tate was off on a wild goose chase. Chapter 16 opens with the start of Tom Robinson's trial.
The following evening, Atticus goes into town, and Jem, Scout, and Dill follow him. Scout shut out the light and as she walked to her bed she stepped on something unusual and whatever it was moved. Jem's temper flares, and he is not going to let anyone talk that way about his father. Dubose's and read to her every day for an entire month. In Chapter 4, we see that the schools have attempted to teach children how to behave in groups and how to be upstanding citizens, but Scout notes that her father and Jem learned these traits without the kind of schooling she is getting.
After a lunch break, Jem, Scout, and Dill attempt to sneak into the courtroom. After lunch, Dill, Jem, and Scout wait for most of the people in the crowd to go inside the courthouse. The sheriff also warned Atticus that a lynch mob might be formed to harm Robinson. By the time the children get into the courthouse, there is no room for them to sit. After a moment of sobering, Mr.
However, this chapter also paves the way for the rest of the story and how the children relate to others as they move toward their own adulthood. Dill and Scout wanted to go out and shoot critters but on Sunday they were prohibited from such activities and instead kicked a football around. To put it another way, Scout gets lucky. Afraid for his life, Tom then ran away. Atticus cross-examines Tate, who says that there was no doctor summoned to examine. Atticus then steps in for his cross-examination of Bob Ewell and asks why no medical attention was sought.
Almost everyone in the town seems to have shown up to see it. From a distance, they see Atticus sitting in front of the Maycomb jail, reading a newspaper. All of this is, once again, Harper Lee giving the reader a window into Maycomb and, thus, a window into the South during this era. The value of some freedoms can't be fully understood until a person is forced to part from them. . They live behind the garbage dump in a run-down, filthy shack. Atticus tells him to answer it, causing the men—whom Scout now recognizes as people she sees every day—to go off laughing.