Lula

Lula appears only once in the novel, but even though brief her presence is memorable. When Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to the African-American First Purchase Church, Lula is the one person who doesn’t roll out the welcome mat for the Finch kids. In fact, Lula is the lone African-American voice of anything approaching dangerous anger in the novel.

Her opposition to the presence of Jem and Scout at First Purchase has some validity, even though it’s immediately silenced – after all, they’re white people invading a sanctuary that has been painfully carved out of a white realm in which African-Americans are second-class citizens. The momentary flare-up of Lula suggests an alternate response, rage, that the African-Americans of Maycomb could be having to the events in their town, and raises the question of why she’s the only one who doesn’t appear quietly resigned. Are the others concerned about the very real dangers that any behavior seen as threatening would bring down on their heads, or is the novel itself unable to allow such disturbing emotions into its carefully-controlled portrayal of African-American harmlessness? It’s hard to say from Lula’s brief appearance, but she does make the novel’s portrayal of African-Americans more complicated.