To Kill a Mockingbird

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1960

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapters 21-24

Chapters 25-28

Chapters 29-31

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Vocabulary

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the book’s narrator, Jean Louise Finch, who is more commonly known as Scout. Scout begins her story by recounting how her older brother, Jem, broke his arm. She links the events that led to Jem’s broken arm into the broader chain of events that led her family to settle in Maycomb, Alabama, providing her child’s perspective of their legacy.

In the south, the social standing of a family is based on how long it’s been connected to the town. The Finch family legacy runs back to a fur-trader named Simon Finch, who fled England to escape religious persecution. Simon Finch set up a farm called Finch’s Landing on the banks of the Alabama River. The farm supported Scout’s father, a lawyer named Atticus Finch; his brother, a doctor named Jack; and his sister, Alexandra, who continued to live at Finch’s Landing.

Atticus serves as a single parent with the help of Calpurnia, a self-educated Black woman who serves as the family cook. Scout mentions that her mother died when she was only 2 years old, so she has few memories of her. Jem, however, was a few years older when his mother died, and he appears to miss her greatly from time to time.

Scout describes Maycomb as a sleepy, slow-moving town in the summer of 1933, when the book’s story begins. In part, the town is slow-moving because of the Great Depression: “there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with” (6). The slow pace of the summer is disrupted by the arrival of a strange young boy named Charles Barker Harris, who calls himself Dill. Dill says he is staying with his aunt, Miss Rachel, the Finch’s neighbor. He dodges questions about family, particularly the absence of his father, and instead focuses on plots of the many movies he’s seen, including Dracula. Jem, who has read many books but seen few movies in the theater, is impressed by Dill’s knowledge. Through their combined knowledge of books and movies, the three children spend much of the summer acting out the plots of dramatic stories.

This play-acting eventually turns to real-world drama when the children discuss the rumors surrounding Arthur “Boo” Radley, their mysterious neighbor who hasn’t been seen outside in many years. Scout explains that the Radley family has long been considered alien to Maycomb’s social norms because they do not open their doors to visitors. She also tells what she knows of Boo’s story. As a teenager, Boo hung out with the Cunningham boys, who were known for their drinking and reckless behavior. One night, the group got into trouble with the law, and opposed to sending Boo to a detention center, his strict Baptist father imprisoned him in the house. Fifteen years later, according to local legend, Boo stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors. Mr. Radley refused to commit Boo to an asylum and instead made his home even more restrictive.

Much of the children’s information about Boo Radley is obtained through neighborhood gossip. Though the gossip contains some truths, these truths are buried in superstitions, such as the fear that Boo creeps around looking in windows at night, and the rumor that Boo Radley has poisoned all of the pecans that fall from the tree on their property. The children accept this gossip as reality to the degree that Jem’s description of Boo as drooling and bloody-handed with “eyes that popped” is accepted as “reasonable” (14).

Fascinated by Jem’s descriptions, Dill dares him to touch the Radley house. Jem eventually does so, sprinting away in fear. Scout thinks she sees a shutter move inside the Radley house.

Chapter 2 Summary

Chapter 2 follows Scout’s first day of the first grade. Her teacher, Miss Caroline, is an outsider from the more industrial northern part of Alabama. Though Miss Caroline is new to teaching and unfamiliar with the agricultural environment of Maycomb, she arrives with lofty ideas about how she will run her classroom. She is displeased when she discovers that Scout can already read and instructs her to discontinue reading at home with Atticus, claiming she is learning the wrong way (19).

Tensions between Scout and Miss Caroline continue to rise at lunch time, when Miss Caroline asks a poor student, Walter Cunningham, why he doesn’t have a lunch. Miss Caroline offers Walter a nickel to buy a lunch, and Scout naively attempts to explain that the Cunningham family is too proud to accept charity. Scout’s opinion is based on legal work Atticus performed on Mr. Cunningham’s behalf regarding an entailment. Lacking the money to pay Atticus for his services, Mr. Cunningham repaid with home-grown nuts and greens. Frustrated and overwhelmed, Miss Caroline refuses to understand, and instead punishes Scout for making her feel uncomfortable. She lashes Scout’s hand with a ruler in front of the classroom.

Chapter 3 Summary

Angry with Walter for making her “start off on the wrong foot” (25), Scout beats him up on the playground. Jem pulls them apart, then invites Walter over for lunch as an apology. On the walk to their house, Jem and Walter bond over their shared anxiety around Boo Radley.

At the house, Atticus speaks with Walter about farming as though he were an adult. Walter requests molasses from Calpurnia, who brings a jar. He pours molasses all over his food. Scout mocks him. Calpurnia removes Scout from the table and scolds her for her judgmental behavior.

Back at school, a louse jumps from the head of Burris Ewell, frightening Miss Caroline. A charming boy named Chuck Little takes care of her, bringing a glass of water and attempting to politely explain that the Ewells are a poor, stubborn, and lazy farming family. Burris tells Miss Caroline that he’s “done his time” (30) for the year and explains that he only goes to school on the first day of every year because the truant officer has given up trying to enforce his attendance beyond this.

Scout returns home and speaks with Atticus about her negative experience on the first day of school. She expresses her reservations about returning, protesting that she shouldn’t have to go because Burris Ewell only goes one day per year. She explains that her main concern is Miss Caroline’s order not to read at home anymore. Atticus explains the disparity between Scout’s social situation and the Ewell’s, suggesting that there is a different code for each of them to live by. He then encourages her to “climb into his skin and walk around in it” (33). He explains that she is not above “the law” (in this case, going to school) but that they can form a compromise. They compromise that if Scout will continue to go to school, she can continue to read at home in secret.

Chapter 4 Summary

Scout feels cheated by the school system, which moves slowly and primarily includes information she already knows. Outside of school, she starts to find treasures inside a knothole in one of the Radley’s trees. At first, she finds sticks of chewing gum, which Jem anxiously makes her spit out. However, when the two discover a foil-lined box containing two polished antique pennies, Jem allows her to keep them. They wonder who is leaving these gifts, with the unspoken understanding that the gift-giver must be Boo Radley.

Dill returns to Maycomb for the summer. The three children decide to play a game called “Boo Radley,” wherein they perform their imagined story of his life. Scout is anxious that Boo will find out about the game, despite Jem’s assurances that Boo is dead and has been stuffed up the chimney by his brother, Nathan Radley.

Atticus catches the children mid-performance and asks if their game has anything to do with the Radleys. Jem lies, but Scout feels guilty and quits her part in the game. Jem continues with the game, insisting that Atticus never explicitly said they couldn’t. Scout confesses that she heard “someone laughing” (45) inside the Radley house.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

The first chapters of To Kill A Mockingbird establish Scout’s narration, which is a dual combination of her adult perspective (looking back on the events of her childhood in Maycomb) and her child perspective (observing the world with a sense of wonder, curiosity, and first-time discovery). The novel’s adult-looking-back frame gives the reader access to mature reflection and analysis, including the history and social hierarchies of Maycomb. The novel’s strong inclusion of Scout’s child perspective characterizes it as a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story.

The first chapters paint a vivid portrait of Maycomb as a slow-moving southern town where “there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with” (6), insinuating the wide-spanning effects of the Great Depression. Scout also describes Maycomb as a town with strong social hierarchies and distinct social “boundaries” (6) between groups of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. She suggests that the Depression has left Maycomb’s citizens with a sense of instability and insecurity that extends to all levels: “Atticus said professional people were poor because the farmers were poor” (33). Furthermore, she implies that this sense of financial instability makes Maycomb’s citizens even more anxious about maintaining these boundaries.

Arthur “Boo” Radley is the novel’s first example of a Maycomb resident who does not conform to the strictures of these boundaries, choosing to associate with the lower-class Cunningham boys and, ultimately, getting into trouble with the law. After Mr. Radley locks his son away in their house, the family both heightens their strict personal boundaries (guarding the reputation of the family), and creates a barrier between themselves and the Maycomb community. As Scout explains, “Of all days Sunday was the day for formal afternoon visiting: ladies wore corsets, men wore coats, children wore shoes. But to climb the Radley front steps and call, ‘He-y,’ of a Sunday afternoon was something their neighbors never did. The Radley house had no screen doors” (10).

Because the Radley family does not adhere to the social norms of Maycomb, they are subject to suspicion and vicious gossip from neighborhood residents. Though the gossip is absurd—including tales that the Radley pecans are poisoned and Boo creeps around at night—the Finch children accept this gossip at face value, not yet possessing the maturity and deductive reasoning to see through it.

Thus, it is significant that a number of outsiders are introduced in the first chapters of To Kill A Mockingbird. As an outsider from Meridian, Mississippi, Dill exposes Scout and Jem to new ideas and experiences (such as his extensive knowledge of cinema), as well as new perspectives (generating a greater level of fascination with the life of Boo Radley). Scout’s teacher, Miss Caroline, is also an outsider from the more industrial, northern part of Alabama, and she brings her own new ideas about how Maycomb’s schools should function.

The first day of school serves as an important learning experience for Scout, though not in the way Miss Caroline intends. Unable to learn through the school curriculum—which fails to accommodate advanced students like Scout, who can already read—she learns through the experience of identifying and empathizing with others. Her midday meal with Walter Cunningham introduces her to the different lifestyle and values of people within the farming class. Walter’s conversation with Atticus illustrates that though he might struggle to fit in at school, he is very intelligent and educated in the subject of farming.

Furthermore, Scout’s conversation with Atticus emphasizes the novel’s theme of radical empathy as a means of affecting both personal and social transformation. Adapting this idea to the level of his child’s understanding, Atticus asks her to “climb into [others’] skin and walk around in it” (33). Atticus also begins to suggest how this empathy can be applied to his practice of law, forming a “compromise” with Scout: “If you’ll concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night just as we always have” (35).