To kill a mockingbird characters quizlet8/13/2023 ![]() The three engage in summertime play activities of improving the Finch tree and acting out the plots of several of their favorite books. He impresses the Finch children with his dramatic recounting of the movie Dracula, which wins him their respect and friendship. From Meridian, Mississippi, Dill will be spending the summer at the nearby house of Miss Rachel Haverford, his aunt. Once this background picture is complete, the real narrative begins with the first meeting of Scout, Jem, and "Dill", a feisty, imaginative boy who is nearly seven but very small for his age Dill defends his height saying, "I'm little but I'm old". Scout is almost six, and Jem is almost ten. The novel takes begins during the summer. However, Jem can remember his mother and Scout notices that he is occasionally nostalgic about her. Scout describes as her father as entirely "satisfactory," and her family's black cook, Calpurnia, as strict and "tyrannical." Scout and Jem's mother died of a heart attack when Scout was two and she has no memories of her. She notes, "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". Scout then describes Depression-era Maycomb, "an old tired town when I first knew it", summer heat and slow pace of life. They instead pled not guilty for first-degree murder, and were hanged, marking "probably the beginning of my father's profound distaste for criminal law." Atticus began his law practice in Maycomb, the county seat of Maycomb County, where his "office in the courthouse contained little more than a hat rack, a spittoon, a checkerboard, and an unsullied Code of Alabama." His first case entailed defending two men who refused to plead guilty for second-degree murder. Their sister Alexandra remained at Finch's Landing. Scout's father, Atticus Finch, studied law in Montgomery while supporting his brother, John "Jack" Hale Finch, who was in medical school in Boston. The family lost its wealth in the Civil War. Having bought several slaves, he established a largely self-sufficient homestead and farm, Finch's Landing, near Saint Stephens. ![]() Their ancestor, a Methodist named Simon Finch, fled British persecution and eventually settled in Alabama, where he trapped animals for fur and practiced medicine. Next, Lee provides an overview of Finch family history. Even though the adult narrator spends much of the book speaking through the voice of her younger self and describing the world through her younger self's eyes, by establishing both the child and adult Scout as presences right from the beginning, the opening of the novel introduces the idea that this will be a novel about young Scout's growing into her older self.The chapter opens with the introduction of the narrator, Scout (Jean Louise) Finch, her older brother Jem (Jeremy), and their friend and neighbor, Dill (Charles Baker Harris). A child is unlikely to either perceive or describe her hometown as being "tired." Scout's language, then, makes clear that Scout functions in the novel in two ways: as the child who is its main character, but also as the grown up narrator looking back on her younger self with more knowledge, more wisdom. Scout's language to describe the town also accomplishes something else, as well. Scout's description of the town as old and tired further establishes the setting in which the story takes place-the Great Depression. (That Atticus left the plantation to make his living also implies that Atticus' views about race and slavery differ from those of his ancestors.) Meanwhile, the fact that Atticus-and by extension, Jem and Scout-are related to most people in the county speaks to the nature of small-town Southern life: Maycomb is a close-knit and insular community. But that Simon finds success and establishes a "plantation," which implies that he and his descendants owned slaves, points to the complications of good and evil: Simon who suffered prejudice goes on to build his fortune by practicing his own prejudice upon others. That Simon Finch had to leave England to escape religious persecution points to the existence of prejudice. ![]() The opening of the novel effectively establishes a foundation for many of its themes.
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