To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter 20 Summary

Mr. Raymond offers Dill his paper bag, which worries Scout, but Dill says it’s nothing worse than Coca-Cola.
Mr. Raymond asks the kids not to give away his secret – he just pretends to drink all the time because it gives other people an excuse when he does things they don’t like, keeping them from giving up on him altogether.
Scout says that the way he acts isn’t honest, but Mr. Raymond says that other people will never understand that he lives the way he does because he likes it, but drunken stupidity they do understand.
Scout asks why he’s told them his secret, and he says it’s because they’re kids and they know better than their elders – Dill’s crying shows that the world hasn’t gotten hold of him and made him blind to its meanness.
Scout says Atticus sees it too, but Mr. Raymond says he’s an unusual case, and all you have to do is look back inside the courthouse to see how unusual.
This reminds Scout that she’s missing out on the trial, and while talking to Mr. Raymond is tempting, the courtroom calls her back.
Dill and Scout return to the balcony, where Reverend Sykes has saved them seats, to find Atticus already halfway through his closing remarks.
Scout asks Jem to fill her in, and Jem says Atticus has just gone over the evidence and there’s no way they can lose.
Atticus, after asking permission from the judge, takes off his coat, unbuttons his vest and collar, and loosens his tie – shocking his children, who have never, ever before seen him so undressed outside of his bedroom.
Atticus’s tone of voice loosens its buttons too, becoming conversational rather than businesslike.
What he says to the jury: the case shouldn’t have even come to trial, because the prosecution doesn’t have any medical evidence that sex, let alone rape, took place; Mayella’s accusations are motivated by guilt over her desire for Tom Robinson; Mayella was beaten by a man who led with his left, and Mr. Ewell is left-handed while Tom most decidedly is not; the witnesses for the prosecution testified with the attitude that as whites they would be believed while Tom, as an African-American, would not; the notion that the prosecution’s witnesses are banking on is that all African-Americans are immoral liars who rape white women whenever they get the chance, but the jury is smart enough to see that for the lie it is, and to know that African-Americans are no worse than any other race.
At this point Scout notices another first: Atticus is sweating.
Atticus continues to the jury: he cites Thomas Jefferson’s famous line that all men are created equal, and says that this doesn’t mean that everyone is just as talented as everyone else, but that everyone is equal under the law.
He ends his speech with a plea to the jury: “In the name of God, do your duty” (20.52).
Atticus turns to go back to his seat, softly saying something else that Scout doesn’t hear; she asks Jem, and he says that Atticus said “In the name of God, believe him” (20.54).
Then Jem and Scout are dismayed to see Calpurnia making a beeline up the center aisle of the courtroom towards Atticus.

Chapter 21

Chapter 19