To Kill a Mocking Bird

Erica Gillum
English composition
Mrs.Kilgour
November 1, 2012 To Kill a Mocking Bird

The book To Kill A Mocking Bird, by Harper Lee, takes readers on a journey though Scout Finch's childhood. In the book, Scout, who lives in a racist town in Southern Alabama with her father Atticus and brother jem, must learn to deal witht the unjust jerdict of a black man accused of rape, a mysterious neighboor, and all of normal childhood trials all children go through. In the book there are three diffrent women, Miss Maudie Atkinson, Calpurnia and Aunt Alexandria. These women play an impotant part in the book they are very stong independent women but there personality's are far from being the same.

Miss Maudie lives across the street from the Finch's. She is a widow, but she isnt upset all the time. She's a very optimistic person and is obsessed with her garden she hated her house, and every second inside of it she seemed to waste her time. When the house burned down, she was actually happy to know that she could have more garden space. She was a baptist, but she wasn't very religious. Religious people always passed by the house all the time and she didn't like it to well. When the black man was accused of raping Mayella Ewell she does not go to the trial because she says its a “ roman carnival”. She became very close to Scout and Jem and begin to grow and wants to become more distant. Miss Maudie helps the children understand the world around them and helps them grow to be good people.

Calpurnia was the Finch's cook and housekeeper. Atticus treated her with respect and almost as if she was apart of the family. She aslo helped the children with the rules and gave them more grief than most parents would give thie own children. She helped bring them up when Atticus couldn't raise them by himself. She acted as a mother to Scout and Jem. She also took them to her church once. Scout realized that Calpurnia talked differently when she was in the black church. Calpurnia was one of the vey few many people at the church who could read and wite. In the beginning of the book, Calpurnia said that Mr. Radley was “The meanest person God blew breath into” even though she “rarely commented on the ways of white people.”

Aunt Alexandra comes over to the Finch's house in hopes to help bring Scout and Jem up “properly”. She is stuck in the old ways and thinks that Atticus lets Scout run all over the place and get into touble. She also dosen't like the fact that Scout is a tomboy, and thinks that Scoutt should be wearing dresses; not overalls. She is also very social in the town and Scout and Jem are surprised to see even Mr. Nathan Radley comes to their house to welcome her. She is also known as Aunty, and is one of Scout's superiors. Scout doesn't always look up to Aunty because Aunty seems stubborn and mean.

Overall these characters in the book have many different personalities they do have one thind in common, and that is they care for Jem and Scout and they want them to grow you knowing what to do and what not to do.