To Kill a Mockingbird Q&a

To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter Questions Chapters 1-3 1. Why does the Radley place fascinate Scout, Jem and Dill? 2. What, briefly, has happened to Arthur “Boo” Radley. 3. Describe Miss Caroline's interactions with Burris Ewell. What does this suggest about Miss Caroline? What does this suggest about the Ewells? 4. Who is Calpurnia? What is her place in the Finch household? 5. Atticus says that you never really understand a person "until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."(pp 33) What does this mean? What does this lesson suggest about Atticus? Is it an easy thing for Scout to learn? Chapters 1-3 1. Because Radley has a lot of rumours. “People said he went out at night when the moon was high, and peeped in windows. When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy crimes committed in Maycomb were his work.” Their lifestyles are very different, special and incomprehensible. “The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb. They did not go to church, Maycomb’s principal recreation, but worshipped at home; Mrs Radley seldom if ever crossed the street for a mid-morning coffee break with her neighbours and certainly never joined a missionary circle. Mr.Radley walked to town at eleven-thirty every morning and came back promptly at twelve; sometimes carrying a brown paper bag that the neighbourhood assumed contained the family groceries’.” They are also mysterious to the children.” I never knew how old Mr.Radley made his living-Jem said he ‘bought cotton’, a polite term for doing nothing – but Mr.Radley and his wife had lived there with their two sons as long as anybody could remember.” The children themselves are really curious." He would stand hugging the light-pole on the corner, the more he would wonder.” The house is mysterious, too. “The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the colour of the slate grey yard around it. Rain-rotten shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard – a ‘swept’ yard that was never swept – where Johnson grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in abundance. Also their house has no screen doors. ” 2. Arthur “Boo” Radley became acquainted with some of the Cunninghams, they formed the nearest thing to a gang ever seen in Maycomb. ” They hung around the barber-shop; they rode the bus to Abbotsville on Sundays and went to the picture show; they attended dances at the county’s riverside gambling hell, the Dew-Drop Inn and Fishing Camp; they experimented with stumphole whisky.” Because of the things what they have done, he had to attend the state industrial school. However, Mr.Radley thought it was a shame. He preferred grounding him at home to sending him to school. Since then, Boo was not seen again for fifteen years.

3. Miss Caroline’s interaction with Burris Ewell was interesting. She was shocked by seeing a mouse crawl out of his hair so that she wanted him to go home and have a shower. However, she didn’t know that Ewell would not coming back tomorrow because he only went to school the first day. Poor, Miss Caroline, she did not know anything because she was new here. She reckoned she’s carried out the law when she got his name on the roll. And because the Ewells always do whatever they want, they were lack of educations, they had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generation. They lived like animals. 4.”She was all angles and bones; she was near-sighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn’t ready to come.” Calpurnia was not only the housekeeper but also the first teacher of Scout. She taught her reading and writing before she went to school. Miss Caroline’s new method of teaching also made Scout break into her grudge against Calpurnia. According to me, Calpurnia was more like a mother to the two children because she was the first female person who turned up in their lives after their mother’s death. She taught them and looked after them and gave punishment if they did anything wrong. Nobody in the Finch household treat her bad because of her colour. They also could not live without her; she has already become an essential part of their lives. 5. It means if you want to know about or understand a person better, you need to think by his mode of thinking on his angles. In other words, don’t judge others without trying to look at a

situation from their perspective. Atticus was rational, intelligent, presented a workable solution. He made a wonderful compromise between him and the Scout which could satisfy both him and Scout. Atticus spoke in a complex vocabulary and he treated children like adults. ”Jem and I were accustomed to our father’s last-will-and-testament diction, and we were at all times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.” Maybe it was not an easy thing for Scout to learn because she was too young and immature. She’s apprehension was still poor. She was lack of experiences as well. And what Atticus said was euphemistic; it was not a six- year-old-girl could understand, in my opinion. When she grows up, she will definitely understand it.