To Kill a Mocking Bird Summary

To Kill a Mocking Bird summary Essay vigil Finch is growing up in a hot, devolve Alabama town, w here t concernher is no subject to buy and nothing to buy it with. She and her senior brother, Jem, live with their father, genus genus genus genus genus genus genus genus genus Atticus, the local lawyer, and their cook, Calpurnia, close to downtown Maycomb. Theyre whole related by blood or marriage to e genuinely star in town, so its a close-knit group to say the least. As our story begins, summer has fair surfaceed. observe is six, and Jem is ten, and they dupe just tryed a boy hiding in their future(a) doorsill neighbors turnip greens.Hes a scrawny kid whos relate is dill, and the three set ab turn up instant fri reverses as in short as its revealed that dill weed has al exacty give earn Dracula, which gives him instant credibility. As summer progresses and favorite games be come old hat, spy, Jem, and dill weed become obsessed with making sibilate Radley come come f orward. hissing Radley lives up the s headt from observatory and Jem, and legend has it that he n ever comes out of his sept. Any sm each crimes or mysterious happenings in town are said to be his work, and rarely lead anyvirtuoso take to the woods the stumbleer alvirtuoso at darkness.Their first raid consists of a dare among dill and Jem. He must run to the Radley dwelling abide, touch it, and run subscribe. He destination does it, plainly save afterwards 3 twenty-four hourss sure thought and much ribbing from Dill. Chapter 2 When September rolls close to and Dill leaves to go blanket al-Qaeda to Meridian, spy gathers that shes starting her first class of school. afterwards her first day sentencetime, however, shes determined not to go O.K.. After stressful to explain the complicated backgrounds of some of the county folks to the new t for individu entirelyy angiotensin-converting enzymeer, observation post lands herself into douse all over again and again, and is not quite sure how.It should be obvious, she thinks, that offering Walter Cunningham a quarter for lunch is simply not done. They dont take help from anyone, and the indicate wherefore he doesnt submit a lunch is because he cant leave one. When she tries to explain this to the new teacher, however, she restores her hands slapped by a ruler. When lunchtime in conclusion rolls around, shes grateful to pay off out of class and go plateful. Chapter 3 Scout wastes no time paying back Walter Cunningham for learnting her started on the amiss(p) foot with the new teacher. It isnt until Jem comes and stops her hat she quits tormenting him in the playground, and she to the blueest degree fall all e truly quad when Jem invites the poor boy to lunch at their house. The day doesnt improve when she embarrasses Walter at the table and is forced to eat in the kitchen by Calpurnia. When she returns to school the days looseness isnt over. take out Caroline, the teac her, is horrified to discover a body louse in the hair of Burris Ewell, a hulking, angry boy who cursorily reduces Miss Caroline to tears as he slouches out of the room, his first and only day of school over.That level(p)ing Scout is weary from the days crimes and begs Atticus not to send her back to school anymore. The fact that Miss Caroline forbade her to read and write anymore is really whats distressing her, and when Atticus strikes a bridge player with her that if she lead concede to go back to school theyll continue interlingual rendition together wish well al behaviors, she happily accepts. Chapter 4 As the school class inches a coherent, Scout begins to realize that shes far more educated than her peers, and until now more so, perhaps, than her teacher.As construction musical composition and crayon Projects evolve day after day, she realizes she is just plain bored. As she flips home from school in that location is a huge oak tree that sits on the corner of the R adley lot. She passes it every day without incident, only one day she spots 2 pieces of chewing gum in a create from raw material in the tree. After making sure it wont kill her she hastily crams it into her mouth, and Jem is barbarous with her when he interprets out, convinced that its poisoned by Boo Radley. During their walk home on the last day of school Scout and Jem find another gemstone in the tree, this time two old, shined up pennies.When Dill arrives for the summer two days later the group resumes their obsession with Boo Radley. They create a play that reenacts Boos animation, and continue with it all summer long until they are very nearly caught by Atticus. Chapter 5 When Dill and Jem start excluding Scout from their plots she begins to pretermit more time with her adjacent door neighbor, Miss Maudie Atkinson. Miss Maudie is tend obsessed, and pass offs her evenings reining over her front porch in the twilight. Scout gets a lot of rich information from her ap proximately Boo Radleys past, and the reason, perhaps, why he never comes out.The next day she uncovers a major plot by Dill and Jem to pass a note to Boo Radley. Scout protests save they threaten her and originally she knows it shes single-valued gambolction of the scheme. Things proceed fairly smoothly until theyre caught by Atticus, who forbids them to set one more foot on the Radley property and to leave Mr. Radley alone. Chapter 6 The last night of the summer Jem and Dill hatch the biggest plot of them all (reasoning that, if they get killed, theyll miss school instead of vacation). They decide to try and peep into one of the windows at the Radley house.When Scout (who until tonight knew nothing of the plan) starts to protest, they call her a girl and threaten to send her home. With that, she joins them. Things take a disastrous turn when Boo Radleys older brother, Mr. Nathan Radley, hears them and, thinking theyre intruders, fires a injection crap-shooter. They barely ma ke it through the turn over in time and high tail it back home so theyre not missed by the adults. When they step into the gathering advertise to discourse the gunshot Scout is horrified to realize that Jem is missing his pants. Dill hatches a good one and ramifys Atticus that he won them from Jem vie sack poker.The adults seem satisfied with the lie, and dont suspect them of causing the gunfire at the Radley place. After they slink off, Scout discovers from Jem that he lost his pants as they were skitter through the wire fence. They got caught and he had to leave them behind or find getting shot. Late that night Jem decides to go after them rather than peril Mr. Nathan finding them the next dayspring and turning him in. Scout pleads with him not to go, scarcely he does it anyway. When he gets back, he doesnt say a word except lies in love, trembling. Chapter 7Jems silence about that night lasts for a calendar week. They both(prenominal) start school again, and Scout discovers that the second grade is worse than the first, and the only quilt is that now she gets to hang on as late as Jem and they can walk home together. Its during this walk home one afternoon that Jem finally devotes up about his sojourn trip back to the Radley place to retrieve his pants. He tells Scout that his pants were not tangled up the wire as he left them tho were folded neatly on the fence post, as if someone was expecting him to come back and get them.As they approach the oak tree with the knot fix they discover a ball of twine. After wait a few days to make sure that the knot jamming is not some other childs hiding place, they take ownership of everything they find in there from here on out. The next treasure they discover in there is the figure of a boy and girl form out of soap. Theyre simple machineved to look like Scout and Jem. The next prize is an old pocket watch that doesnt run. They decide to write a garner to whomever is leaving them things, but theyre shocked to discover the next day that the hole has been filled with cement.When they question Mr. Nathan Radley (Boos brother who does leave the house) he tells them the tree was crazy and he had to do it. Upon questioning Atticus, however, he tells them that tree is perfectly healthy. Chapter 8 That fall Maycomb endures the coldest snap since 1885, and Scout thinks the world is ending one morning when she wakes up and finds snow on the ground. Although its only a dusting, Jem is determined to bitnequin his first snow charitable and sets out creatively making one out of dirt, and because using the precious white snow to cover it up.That night the temperature drops even further and all the stoves in the house are lit for warmth. Scout is awakened in the middle of the night by Atticus, who tells her Miss Maudies house next door is on fire and they have to get out. They spend the night in front of the Radley driveway, watching the commotion. The men of Maycomb help as muc h as they can getting furniture out of her house while there is still time, but eventually the whole thing is up in flames. They dont go back in brass the house until morning, and Scout is horrified to discover shes wrapped up in mantle and she has no idea where she got it.She almost falls over when they deduce it was Boo Radley that brought the blanket out to her in the night, and she never even knew. 7Theyre heartened to discover the next day that Miss Maudie is not grieving for her lost house, saying she al slipway wanted a smaller one anyway. Chapter 9 As the school year progresses Scout begins to get teased at school over her father, genus Atticus is called a Nigger Defender and one night she asks Atticus why nation are parleying about him. He tells her thats hes taken on a case that affects him personally and because he is defending this man, tom turkey Robinson, there is a big stink about it in town.Atticus asks Scout that, no matter what she hears, shes not to get into a fight with someone over this case. True to her word, she doesnt fight, even when antagonized at school. Until Christmas. Their Uncle Jack Finch comes down from Boston, which is the good part of Christmas. The bad part is that they all have to spend Christmas day at Aunt Alexandras house at Finchs Landing. Even worse, their cousin Francis is there, and Scout hates him. Things go smoothly until after dinner when, alone in the backyard with Scout, Francis starts calling Atticus all sorts of terrible names because hes defending a unappeasable man.Scout sails in with her fists to defend him and gets caught by Uncle Jack. She doesnt have a moment to tell her side of the story, and moments later theyre on their way back home. Shes finally able to tell her story to Uncle Jack later that night, and he apologizes for jumping all over her when he shouldve been punishing Francis. Chapter 10 The neighborhood excitement starts up again in February when Tim Johnson, a mangy dog owned by a man on the other side of town, is discovered walkway up the street with rabies. The sheriff is called and he and Atticus drive up with a gun to shoot it.Scout and Jem watch in amazement as their father, whom theyve never seen render a gun in his life, takes aim and shoots the dog square in the head from an amazing distance. Theyre further shocked to discover that he is the deadest shot in Maycomb county, an accomplishment hes never bothered to mention to them since he doesnt like guns. Chapter 11 The day after Jems 12th birthday finds the two walking into town to spend his birthday silver. The downside to taking the route into town is that they have to walk past Mrs.Duboses house, a cantankerous, bitter old woman who lives at the end of the street. She never has anything good to say to anyone, but Atticus forever and a day tells the two of them to ignore her foul words and treat her with courtesy and respect. normally theyre able to do this, but today their patience is pushed thin whe n she starts contemptuous Atticuss decision to defend gobbler Robinson. They wait until theyre on their way back home from town and suddenly Jem starts destroying Mrs. Duboses flowers with Scouts baton wand, chopping them viciously off the bush and scattering them a insure her yard.When Atticus comes home later that evening, he knows hes in for it worse than hes ever been. Atticus makes Jem go to her house and speech with her, and when Jem returns he says that she is making him read to her everyday for the next month. When Monday comes around, Scout goes with him to preserve him company, and the days drag by. When she dies a month later, Atticus informs them that Mrs. Dubose was a morphia addict who had decided she was not passage to die addicted to the drug. Jems afternoons of interlingual rendition to her broke her from her addiction, and she was able to die in peace. Chapter 12As summer begins Scout is oppress to discover that Dill will not be joining them. When Atticus has to go out of town for two weeks, Calpurnia decides that she will take them to church service service with her. Aside from one woman, Jem and Scout are welcomed into the African church with give arms and theyre amazed to see how different it is from their own staid church service. Theyre also amazed to find out that the church collection is going to Helen Robinson, toms wife, and the idealistic is not letting anyone leave until theyve collected $10, which is what she needs each week to support her kids.Purses are scraped and pockets searched, and finally everyone comes up with enough money and the doors are opened. They also find out that tom is in put aside because hes acc apply of raping Bob Ewells daughter, Mayella (who is white), which is why the built-in town is in an katzenjammer over Atticus taking on the case. When they get back home from church, they find Aunt Alexandra on the front porch swing delay for them. Chapter 13 As Scout and Jem begin to question Aunt Ale xandra, she tells them shes come to stay awhile (which could be days or years, according to Maycombs customs).She settles in and the county welcomes her with open arms, although she certainly adds a formidable presence to Jem and Scouts daily routine. She begins nerve-racking to school the two on how to be a proper Finch (since they come from, in her words, a Fine Family) but both Scout and Jem have no interest in becoming a minuscule gentleman and a little lady, and hardly bother hard to learn. Chapter 14 As life continues on with Aunty in the house, one night Scout goes to bed and steps on something soft and warm and round, which she thinks is a snake.After calling Jem in for a thorough investigation nether her bed they find Dill under there, dirty and starving and still his same old self. Scout finds out that the reason why Dill ran off was because his parents just arent raise in him, and he spends most of his days alone. He spends the night with them, suspicious what the n ext day will bring. Chapter 15 It is decided a week later that Dill will stay in Maycomb with his Aunt Rachel, who happens to be the Finchs neighbor. This news makes both Scout and Jem very happy. One night theyre all relaxing in the living room when Mr.Heck Tate, the sheriff, comes knocking at the door with a group of men, warning Atticus that the local group of no-accounts qualification try to come at Tom Robinson this weekend. He is cosmos held in the Maycomb jail. The next night Atticus mysteriously leaves the house and on a hunch Jem, Scout and Dill go looking for him in town. They finally find him reading a book on the porch at the jailhouse. one time Jem is satisfied that Atticus is ok they turn to go, but suddenly a line of cars trace up and a group of men get out and surround the porch.Things get serious when Scout, Jem, and Dill rush into the crowd to Atticuss defense, and although he tells them to go home they dont budge. Scout realizes that these men are strangers, a nd that theyre here to get Tom Robinson. Scout finally sees that she does know one man in the crowd, Mr. Cunningham, Walters father, and as she tries to make conversation with him the entire group falls silent, listening to her talk about Walter and Mr. Cunninghams entailment, which Atticus is currently helping him out on. Although she doesnt realize it, she makes them all realize that they are acting barbaric and finally its Mr.Cunningham who calls off the mob and makes everyone go home. Chapter 16 The next morning, Saturday, the whole county begins to level into town to watch Tom Robinsons trial. Jem and Scout run a never-ending commentary for Dill, explaining the backgrounds and tendencies of everyone that passes. After lunch they head into town themselves to watch the trial. referable to the immense crowd theres no room downstairs but Reverend Sykes, the black preacher from Calpurnias church, gives them seats in the colored section upstairs. When they get up there and sit dow n, they see the first watcher is Mr.Heck Tate. Chapter 17 As Atticus begins to question the sheriff, who was the one that immediately saw Mayella after she was raped, he immediately begins to find holes in his testimony that prove there is no way that Tom Robinson could have beaten and raped the girl, although at this time the jury and crowd dont really know where hes going with his questioning. tout ensemble that is apparent is that Mayelles right eye was blackened and that all around her throat was bruised, as if two strong hands had tried to strangle her.The next witness to take the stand is Mayellas father, Bob Ewell, who is poor, uneducated, and downright mean-spirited. As Atticus begins to question him, it becomes finally apparent to Jem where hes going. He suddenly sees that there is no doubt that it was Bob Ewell who beat up Mayelle and thusly pointed the finger at Tom. Scout still doesnt see it however, and thinks Jem is counting his crybabys before theyre hatched. As s he looks at the back of Tom Robinson, who is big and strong, she thinks he easily could have thinned Mayella. Chapter 18Mayella is the next to take the stand, and as Atticus questions her he begins to poke holes in her testimony as well. Finally he asks Tom Robinson to stand up so Mayella can identify him, and everyone sees that his left arm is fully 12 inches shorter than his right, and is therefore crippled and unusable. Scout finally sees that there is no way he could have choked Mayella and blacked out her right eye. Its a somatic impossibility. Atticus accordingly begins to ask her if it was really her father that beat her up but she refuses to say, and she refuses to say another word after she accuses Tom Robinson one more time.Chapter 19 The next and last witness is Tom Robinson himself. Tom tells the jury that he went into Mayellas yard lots of times to help her with little chores, and that she was always asking for his help. She once offered to pay him, but Tom declined the invitation. Since that, Tom willingly executed Mayellas chores free of charge. When he begins talking about the night of the rape he tells everyone that Mayella invited him in to do a chore and then started coming on to him, trying to kiss him, and it was her father that saw what she was trying to do through the window.Tom tried to resist Mayella without hurting her, and as soon as he could get away he took off running. He is soft-spoken and polite. But he makes the mistake of telling Mr. Gilmore that the reason he helped Mayella is because he felt sorry for her. And in those times, a black man feeling sorry for a white woman or even saying it may as well be a crime. During the cross examination by Mr. Gilmore Dill begins crying uncontrollably, so Scout takes him outback(a) for some fresh air. Dill cannot get over how cruel Mr.Gilmore (the prosecutor) is to Tom Robinson, and another man is outside the courthouse and knows exactly why Dill is so upset. Chapter 20 The man is Mr. Dolphus Raymond, a local character who is ostracized because he unify a black woman. To tone down the talk about him around the town he pretends to be a drunk, but it is really coca plant Cola that is in the paper sack he carries around. He tells Dill that the great unwashed can be very cruel sometimes and that it makes him chuck too. Scout knows she shouldnt be out talking to this sinful man, but she finds him sharp and fascinating.When they get back inside the courthouse they find Atticus in the middle of his closing statement, and Jem is convinced theyre going to win the case since Tom Robinson could not have physically done what Mayella is accusing him of. Chapter 21 When they go home that evening for dinner they can hardly wait to go back to the courthouse because they dont want to miss the verdict. They wolf down their supper and race back. The jury stays out a long time, till almost midnight, deciding on a verdict, and Scout falls asleep waiting to hear. In pith the juro rs were out deciding almost nine hours.Finally they come back with a verdict guilty. Chapter 22 Jem starts to cry, and cannot believe the jury would convict Tom when it was so obvious he hadnt raped Mayella. He and Scout are both in shock. The next morning the Finches all surprised at the issue forth of food that was left on the back porch from black people in the community, mostly from Calpurnias neighborhood, to tell Atticus thank you for defending Tom Robinson, in spite of the verdict. The children have a conversation with Miss Maudie who tells them that it wasnt just Atticus trying to help Tom Robinson.They Judge was trying, Mr. Heck Tate was trying, there were lots of people behind the scene trying. They might of lost the case, she says, but only Atticus could have kept a jury out so long deciding. In her mind, its a baby step towards equality. Chapter 23 The next drama of the day is that Bob Ewell spits in the face of Atticus and says hell get him back for embarrassing him so badly in court. Atticus passes it off as an empty threat, and does his best to assuage the fears of Jem and Scout, who are very worried for him. Atticus has not lost hope for Tom Robinson, either.Theres still the appeal, which hes confident that they have a good chance of winning. As Jem and Scout discuss the lives and ways of Maycomb county folks after the trial, they begin to realize something disturbing about human nature, and the ways people can come up with to just be mean spirited. Jem begins to understand that the reason Boo Radley never comes out of his house is not because he cant, but is because he doesnt want to come out. Chapter 24 As September inches closer Scout is introduced to formal tea time, hosted by Aunt Alexandra, who is on a relentless campaign to teach her to be a lady.As Scout navigates through the social hour shes lost on how ladies can look so pretty and delicate, and yet trap each other with conversation, revealing an aggressiveness you cant really see ex cept when they talk to each other. She decides she feels much more at home in her fathers world. When Atticus comes home early from work and interrupts tea Scout knows somethings up. She follows him into the kitchen and learns that Tom Robinson is dead. He made a break for it at the prison and was shot by the guards. Atticus enlists the help of Calpurnia to go and tell Toms wife, Helen who is she.Scout, Miss Maudie, and Aunt Alexandra pull themselves together and rejoin the ladies at tea. Chapter 25 Jem and Dill were able to witness the sad affair of Atticus having to tell Helen that Tom is dead, as his car passed them as they were walking back from swimming at Barkers Eddy. Atticus was very gentle about it, but Helen fainted away. The town of Maycomb was interested in Toms dying for about two days, and then moved on to other things. Jem tells Scout that he heard from the grapevine that Mr. Ewell was threatened them again, saying that there was one down and two to go.Jem believes t hat hes all talk and warns Scout not to fall out a word to Atticus, and not to worry. Chapter 26 As school starts Jem begins high school (7th grade) and Scout rarely sees him until dark. Shes in 3rd grade now, and although the Radley place ceases to terrify her she still thinks about Boo, and regrets ever tormenting him the way they used to. One day in class they start talking about Adolf Hitler, and Scout discovers that her teacher, Miss Gates, hates Hitler and feels strongly that his persecution of Jews is wrong.Scout is confused about this, however, because during the summer at the trial she heard Miss Gates distinctly saying suffering things about Tom Robinson, and how this should teach them all a lesson. When she asks Jem about it, why Miss Gates can hate Hitler and yet feel Tom Robinsons verdict is justified because hes black, Jem gets very upset and yells at her not to ever talk about that trial to him again. When she goes to Atticus for comfort he tells her that Jem is jus t trying to come to terms with something in his head, and when he does hell start being himself again. Chapter 27 As October crawls forward a few things happen in town.The Judge finds a nighttime crawler in his yard but doesnt see who it is. Helen Robinson, Toms wife, starts working for Mr. Link Deas, Toms old employer, who offers her a job because he feels so badly about what happened to Tom. She has to go a mile out of her way to avoid the Ewell place, because each time she passes they antagonize her. When Mr. Deas finds out about it he goes over to the Ewell place and threatens Mr. Ewell to leave Helen alone. The next day Mr. Ewell follows Helen all the way to work and Mr. Deas has to chew him out again. To Aunt Alexandra, it bodes trouble.As Halloween approaches Scout learns that she will be required to participate in the school pageant, an agricultural themed take where shell be playing the part of Pork. Her attire is a bear-sized ham hock fashioned out of brown cloth and ch icken wire. Everyone else is too worn out to come to the nights pageant, so Scout and Jem go alone. Chapter 28 Its a really dark night, but Scout has fun playing the various games the school put on before the pageant. The entire county is there to watch the show, and Scout invariably falls asleep waiting for her part in the play and makes her entrance much too late.Shes mortified, but it makes everyone laugh. Because shes so embarrassed about her performance she asks Jem to wait until most of the people have left the school before they begin walking home. As they start their journey back home in the pitch black dark, Jem begins to hear someone following them. At first they think its their friend, Cecil, trying to scare them, but they begin to realize that its not. Before they know whats hit them theyre attacked from whomever is following them. Scout is crushed under her costume, and then Jem screams.She cant see a thing, and then things grow quiet and she realizes there are now 4 pe ople under the tree. Scout stumbles out into the road, calling for Jem, and then sees a man walking unsteadily, carrying Jem in front of him towards their house. When she gets inside Atticus quickly calls the doctor and the Sheriff, and none of them know how badly Jem is hurt until Dr. Reynolds gets there and informs them that hes got a broken arm. Heck Tate gets there next and tells them all that Bob Ewell is lying under the tree where they were attacked, dead with a kitchen knife stuck in his ribs. Chapter 29Scout tells them all what happened leash up to the attack. The man that carried Jem into the house is still in the room with them, but hes so silent and in the shadows that they pretty much forget hes there. Heck Tate tells them that Scouts costume probably saved her life, as there is a slash remember through the chicken wire where Bob Ewell tried to stab her. When she gets to the end of her story she realizes that the man who saved their lives, the man who carried Jem home, is Boo Radley. Chapter 30 As Dr. Reynolds starts to set Jems arm they all head to the front porch, where Boo will be more comfortable in the shadows.Scout leads him out and sits beside him in the deepest shadow. Atticus and Heck Tate get into a battle of wills over who really killed Bob Ewell. Atticus believes Jem did it, and refuses to have the affair hushed up so its hanging over Jems head and the county has ample material for gossip. Heck Tate contends that Bob Ewell fell on his knife, and insipid out refuses to tell anyone that Boo Radley killed him (which is what really happened). His reason is because he knows all the ladies of Maycomb county would be by Boos house bringing him cakes to thank him, and he knows Boo doesnt want to be dragged into the limelight.Finally, Atticus agrees to the story, and thanks Boo for saving his children. Chapter 31 Scout leads Boo back into the house one last time so he can say goodbye to Jem, who is still sleeping, and then she walks him home. After he goes inside she stands on his front porch and realizes that she can see the entire neighborhood. She understands that all through the years Boo has watched them grow up, playing games and living their lives. She begins to understand that maybe she and Jem did give something to Boo after all. She gives him a hug and heads back home.