To Kill A Mockingbird Question Answers

1. In To Kill A MockingBird, Harper Lee describes the school setting and Southern culture to better understand the story and its plot. Lee describes deep divisions between the people in Maycomb, divisions that the everyone in the town is aware of. For example, when Scout’s first grade teacher, Miss
Caroline, is new to Maycomb and does not know of these divisions, she is quickly showed them. She tells Burris Ewell after a “cootie” comes out of his hair, to go home and wash his hair, but is puzzled after Burris tells her he was just leaving. An older classmate of Scout says that, “ He’s one of the
Ewells, ma’am. Whole school’s full of ‘em. They come the first day every year and then leave”, and explains the division of Ewell’s in Maycomb. Also in school, Cecil Jacobs says to Scout that her father,
Atticus, defended niggers. This shows that there was a major rift between the white and black population in Maycomb. Overall, the reader receives the information everyone in Maycomb is separated by a division or rift from everyone else.

2. When Scout observes Walter, she says that, “Walter looked like he had been raised on fish food”. Before this, Scout explains to Miss Caroline that Walter is a Cunningham and that he does not have lunch and cannot pay her back a quarter to buy lunch so he wouldn’t take the quarter. It shows that families in the Great Depression often did not have money and so went hungry.
Walter was an example, but his family’s ways made him unable to borrow the quarter. 3. Atticus advises her to do so to understand people, so Scout tries to think like Jem and figure out what was in his mind. This is significant because it shows that Scout is maturing enough to understand that Jem wants to be left alone for awhile. 4. Jem and Scout receive air rifles for Christmas, but Atticus won’t teach them how to shoot. He

says that they can shoot at bluejays, but never shoot a mockingbird because it is a sin. After this encounter, Jem and Scout ask Miss Maudie, and she says, “Mockingbird’s don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
She reinforces what Atticus says and tells the children the ideal that it is a sin to kill or harm anything that is innocent. 5. Boo Radley is a mysterious character that Scout, Jem, and Dill ponder about constantly. He is a magnet for their curiosity as well as a measuring stick of their maturity. The children try to understand him because they cannot do what Atticus advises when dealing with people’s actions, to climb into their skin and walk around in it. As Scout matures, she starts to climb into Boo
Radley’s skin and walk around in it. She asks the question of whether Boo Radley stays inside his home because he wants to, instead of thinking that he is dead or insane. This shows her maturation and greater insight. Boo Radley and the Radley Place also help the setting of the story, and explain the behaviors of certain persons in the town. For example, Cecil Jacobs takes a much longer route to go to school just so he can stay away from the Radley Place.

6. Lula is an African American woman who is in the church that Calpurnia attends. Atticus is out of town on business so Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to her own church. As the group of three walks in, Lula questions Calpurnia about why she brought two white children to a black church.
Calpurnia talks to her with a sense of contempt as does Zeebo the garbage collector when he says, “Mister Jem, we’re mighty glad to have you all here. Don’t pay no ‘tention to Lula, she’s contentious because Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She’s a troublemaker from way back, got fancy ideas an’ haughty ways­­we’re mighty glad to have you all. By her actions, Lula teaches Scout that when some white people hate black people, the hate is sometimes returned. 7. Lee uses Jem in the story to ask his Atticus whether the men outside arguing with Atticus were a gang. Atticus says he has never heard of a gang in Maycomb, and Jem asks about the Klu Klux
Klan attacking Catholics in Maycomb. Atticus denies this ever happening but adds that the Klan are more of a political organization that had died out.

8. “It was like Saturday. People from the south end of the county passed our house in a leisurely but steady stream.”
“ ‘Yonder’s some Mennonites,’Jem aid to Dill. ‘They don’t have buttons.’ They lived deep in the woods, did most of their trading across the river, and rarely came to Maycomb.”
“It was a gala occasion. There were no room at the public hitching rail for another animal, mules and wagons were parked under every available tree. The courthouse was covered with picnic parties sitting on newspapers, washing down biscuit and syrup with warm milk from fruit jars.”
All of these quotes send the message to the reader that people around Maycomb County are very interested in Tom Robinson’s trial. When Jem points out the Mennonites to Dill, it becomes known that they rarely came to Maycomb. The town is flooded with people as there was no room at the public hitching station for anymore animals, and mules and wagons were parked under every available tree. 9. Jem understands the idea of the trial much better than Scout because he understands the crime of rape. Jem also is more focused on the trial as evident when Scout says, “Jem, are those the
Ewells sittin’ down yonder?” When Jem replies he shows that he is very focused by his answer,
“Hush, Mr. Heck Tate’s testifyin’.”

Despite this, Scout understands the actual trial better, because Jem is becoming cocky on page one hundred seventy­eight while Scout is still doubting that outcome. Jem believes that there is only one verdict, the innocent verdict, while Scout believes that it could go either way, but still leans toward innocent. This means that Scout has a better understanding of the progress of the trial. 10. When Tom Robinson admits that he feels sorry for Mayella, he is making an enormous mistake. He is allowing himself to be targeted by the accusation of fancying Mayella which is culturally considered a crime by the people of Maycomb and much of the South. It is also an answer that is not deemed logical and can be used against him, evident of how he is uncomfortable in his chair. 11. Scout believes that the length of the jury deliberations means that there is a chance that Tom
Robinson will be guilty while Jem has an unwavering belief that he will be innocent. In response to Scout remarking about the length of the deliberations of the jury and questioning Jem’s unwavering belief of innocence, Jem says, “There are things you don’t understand.” But still,
Scout has her doubts as she thinks, “I would not have recieved the impression that was creeping into me. The feeling grew until the atmosphere in the courtroom was exactly the same as a cold
February morning