To Kill a Mockingbird: Questions and Notes

[kimokeeffe]

Small town, southern life

Most of the houses and buildings in Maycomb are falling down
The town is controlled by seasons
Racism, typical for a town like Maycomb in the 1930's
Everyone knows each other
Close knit community
To an extent, the young Scout and Jem are right: Maycomb is a small, safe, peaceful, intimate community. Yet as Scout and Jem grow up, they come to see another side to their small town. They discover that the town has a fiercely maintained and largely illogical social hierarchy based on wealth, history, and race; ensures its safety through a communal insistence on conformity that subjects anyone who does not conform to dislike and mistrust; and gains its peace by resisting change and ignoring injustice. This is not to say that To Kill a Mockingbird is a condemnation of small town life in the South. Rather, the novel sees the town in much the same terms it sees individuals: as containing wisdom and blindness, good and evil, and for all of that possessing its own special dignity. In a way you could say that Maycomb is the epitome of a small, southern town.

Quotes:
"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. . . . There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself."
-scout

'being southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors  on either side of the battle of Hastings'
-scout

Everybody in Maycomb knew each other and gosip got around quickly making judgment high.

"Everybody in Maycomb, it seemed had a Streak: a Drinking Streak, a Gambling Streak, a Mean Streak, a Funny Streak." p141

[kimokeeffe]

general quotes:

“Maycomb was a tired old town… it had nothing to fear but fear itself” (Page 1 of novel- context)
“You never really know someone until you consider things from his point of view, until step inside their skin and walk around in it” (Atticus to Scout)
“ I’ll take the case” *Atticus to judge when he is asked to represent Tom Robinson)
“My father said….It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us”
There just didn’t seem to be anyone or anything that Atticus couldn’t explain”
There’s a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep them all away from you. But that’s never possible. (he says this after the children see Ewell drunk at the Robinson house when he visits Helen Robinson).
“I don’t care what the reasons are. I forbid you to fight.” (When Scout fights Cecil Jacobs for ‘accusing’ Atticus of defending Tom)
“If I didn’t (defend TR) I could not hold my head up in town. I could not even tell you or Jem not to do somethin’ anymore” (Atticus’ response to Scout when Scout fights Cecil Jacobs for ‘accusing’ Atticus of defending Tom)
"Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall,
judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch,
that’s why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could
never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face;
what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most
of the time."

[caffinatedloz]

PRACTICE ESSAY TOPICS
Atticus Finch demonstrates the courage that is necessary when faced with hostile prejudice.

To Kill a Mockingbird explores how the path to justice is slow and brutal.

How does To Kill a Mockingbird explore the link between ignorance and racism.

What is frightening in To Kill a Mockingbird is the way that discrimination, injustice and violence become just an accepted way of life. Discuss.

While To Kill A Mockingbird shows small "wins" over racism, overall we leave the text with the depressing feeling that not much is really going to change. Do you agree with this view?

[caffinatedloz]

I found this summary of TKAMB super helpful.

Also, here is a list of the quotes that I memorised for my exam to write an essay:
- “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.”
- “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but begin anyway.”
- “Every tool available to free men.”
- “The bravest man that ever lived.”
- “You couldn’t, but they could and did.”
- “One type of folks. Folks.”
- “Every lawyer gets at least one case in their lifetime that affects them personally.”
- “You never really understand a person until you consider their point of view. Until you climb inside of their skin and walk around in it.”
- “He was real nice.”/“Most people are when you finally see them”
- “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
- “Just standing on Radley porch was enough.”
- “Let the dead bury the dead this time.”
- “She was a victim of cruel poverty and ignorance.”
- “You saw something come between them and reason.”
- “He was part of a mob but he was still a man.”