Calpurnia Character Analysis

Calpurnia Character Analysis
In many All American novels it is important to have both dynamic and static characters. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird Calpurnia is a static character. Throughout the whole novel Calpurnia is motherly and she does not change at points in the book where she should change. Calpurnia is the maid, nanny, and cook in the book. Her main job is to look after the kids while Atticus is gone and when he is home she cooks. Since Calpurnia looks after the children she has a motherly presence throughout the whole novel. Calpurnia says that Jem and Scout have boundaries between Mrs. Dubose’s house and the Radley place . She does this so that she knows Scout and Jem are close enough to hear her voice when she calls for them. This shows a protective instinct in her because if something were to happen the kids would not be far from home. The strange thing is that Calpurnia is black and society, at the time, were not accepting of blacks and they were not treated the same as whites. Calpurnia realized this like when Scout says, “Calpurnia rarely commented on the ways of white people.” So since Calpurnia is like a mother to Scout and Jem it is strange and unheard of in society. But another odd thing is that Scout and Jem’s mom died when they were younger so Scout looks up to Calpurnia, who is a black woman, but she is the only main woman in her young life. This probably would make Calpurnia feel like she has to teach Scout right, like her mother would have done. Some events in the book should really change Calpurnia but she stays the same because society does not allow for change for a black woman and, Calpurnia sees this. After Tom Robinson is pronounced guilty Calpurnia would be expected to go out and want to fight for equal rights but she does nothing. Also when Aunt Alexandra moves in she thinks that Calpurnia is useless now that she is there to take care of the children. Aunt Alexandra says that she, “did not permit Calpurnia to make the