To Kill a Mockingbird

The place: Maycomb, Alabama, finalist for the Most Boring Town in America. Few people move in, fewer move out, so it’s just the same families doing the same things for generation after generation. One such family is the Finches: Scout, her brother Jem, and their father Atticus. Every summer Scout and Jem are joined by Dill Harris, who shares their obsession with the local haunted house, the Radley Place, and the boogeyman who lives there, Boo Radley. Jem makes up hair-raising stories about Boo’s bloodthirsty ways, but that just makes Dill want to see him all the more.

Fall comes, Dill leaves, and Scout starts school. The Radley Place is in between Scout’s house and school, so she has to go by it every day, usually at top speed. One day she notices something odd: a couple of pieces of gum stuck in a hole in the tree. She tells Jem about it, and soon they find other treasures hidden in the same place, including finely-carved soap figurines of Scout and Jem themselves. This lasts until the following fall, when they find that Mr. Nathan (Boo’s brother) has filled in the knothole with cement.

That winter, disaster strikes: Miss Maudie’s house catches on fire and burns to the ground. While a sleepy Scout stands on the street trying not to freeze, someone drapes a blanket over her shoulders without her noticing: turns out that someone was Boo Radley, and it freaks Scout out that he was right there and she didn’t even notice.

At school, Scout gets flak from her classmates because her father, a lawyer, has taken on a new client, an African-American man named Tom Robinson. Atticus tells her that a lot of people think he shouldn’t defend Tom because of his race, but that it’s the right thing to do. At his request, Scout stops fighting her classmates to defend her father’s honor, even though they call her a coward.

Christmas comes, and Scout and Jem get their dream gifts: a pair of air rifles. Atticus won’t teach them to shoot, but he tells them that if they must shoot at birds, they shouldn’t pick on mockingbirds, which don’t do anyone any harm. The kids feel kind of dissatisfied with boring old Dad, who can’t do any of the cool things (like playing football or training ninjas) that the other fathers do. One day a mad dog turns up on their street, and Atticus reluctantly shoots it. The kids are surprised to learn that their father is a crack shot, since he’s never told them anything about it.

One week Atticus is out of town for a Sunday, so the family’s cook, Calpurnia, takes the kids to her own African-American church, First Purchase. Everyone welcomes them except a woman named Lula, who says that they don’t belong there. The priest, Reverend Sykes, holds a collection to support Tom Robinson’s family, and doesn’t let anyone leave the church until he’s sure they have enough money. Later Scout asks Calpurnia what Tom is accused of, and Cal reluctantly tells her that Bob Ewell has accused him of raping Ewell’s daughter. The kids talk to Calpurnia about her past and realize that she has a whole other life that they don’t know anything about.

When they get home from church, they find Aunt Alexandra, who’s come to stay with them for a while. She has two goals: to teach the kids some family pride, and to get Scout to be a proper lady. Both goals seem doomed from the start.

One evening a week later, Mr. Tate and some other men turn up at the Finch house to talk to Atticus about the Robinson case. Their manner scares Jem and Scout, but Atticus assures them that the men are friendly. But the next evening Atticus goes out, and when the kids go looking for him they find him sitting in front of the jail where Tom is held. They’re about to head home when some men pull up, who want Atticus to get out of the way so they can get to Tom. Atticus refuses to move, and Scout thinks something exciting is going to happen so she runs up to him, with Jem and Dill on her heels. It’s only then she realizes this is a different group of men from the ones that turned up at her house, and they are definitely not friendly. But her innocent attempts at conversation deflect the men’s anger, and they leave without violence.

The next day is Tom Robinson’s trial. Atticus tells the kids to stay home, so they just sit on their porch and watch everyone go by on the way to the courthouse – apparently the trial is the must-see event of the season. After lunch the kids head over to the courthouse. They can’t find a seat, so Reverend Sykes takes them to sit with him in the balcony segregated for African-Americans.

At the trial, Sheriff Tate testifies that Mr. Ewell and his daughter Mayella told him that Tom had beaten and raped Mayella, but that he hadn’t called a doctor to examine her. Tate also says that Mayella’s worst injuries were on the right side of her face. Then Mr. Ewell, who reminds Scout of a rooster, takes the stand and says basically the same thing, only with more offensive language. Atticus gets Ewell to write something, showing that he is left-handed.

Mayella is the next witness. She gives her version of the crime. Atticus’s first questions to her are less about what happened than about her home life more generally, showing how lonely it is. Atticus has Tom stand up so Mayella can identify him, and Scout sees that Tom’s left hand is shriveled and useless. Mayella breaks down under questioning and then refuses to answer Atticus’s questions at all.

Finally Tom Robinson, the only witness for the defense, is up for questioning. Tom gives a very different version of events, in which Mayella was trying to kiss him despite his refusals when Mr. Ewell showed up and Tom ran. During Mr. Gilmer’s cross-examination of Tom, Dill starts crying, and Jem makes Scout take him outside. There they run into Mr. Dolphus Raymond, whose sympathizes with Dill’s sick anger at the condescending way Mr. Gilmer was treating Tom.

Dill and Scout return to the courtroom to find Atticus well into his closing remarks. Jem whispers that Atticus has just gone over the evidence and there’s no way they can lose. Atticus tells the jury that the prosecution is relying on the jury’s racism to convict Tom even though there’s no evidence any crime even took place. Mayella’s injuries at the time suggested that she was beaten by a left-handed man, and Tom’s left hand is useless (though Mr. Ewell’s isn’t). Atticus reminds the jury that everyone should be equal under the law, and they should do their duty and acquit Tom. After four hours of deliberation, the jury finally delivers its verdict: guilty. As Atticus walks down the aisle and out of the courtroom, the African-Americans in the balcony silently stand up as a gesture of respect.

Atticus and Jem especially are bitterly disappointed at the verdict, but they feel a little better the next morning. At breakfast it turns out that a large segment of the local African-American population has sent gifts of food to the Finches. Not everyone is so grateful, though: when Atticus runs into Ewell in town that morning, Ewell spits in his face and tells him to watch out for worse.

Atticus isn’t scared of Ewell, but the kids are terrified. Atticus calms them down, and tells them that Tom is at a prison 70 miles away, but he can appeal the ruling. Jem and Atticus talk about the legal system, and how it happened that the jury could convict Tom when he was so obviously innocent. Atticus also tells them that there was one man who wanted to acquit Tom – a friend of the Mr. Cunningham whom Scout talked to in the lynching party – but he couldn’t hold out against everyone else.

At the end of August, Aunt Alexandra hosts a missionary tea, and Scout ends up joining the party. Two of the visitors, Mrs. Merriweather and Mrs. Farrow, talk about the Robinson case and in a polite, ladylike way accuse Atticus of stirring up trouble by defending Tom, before moving on to the general inferiority of black people. Miss Maudie cuts them down to size.

Atticus comes home early and calls Calpurnia and Aunt Alexandra aside. Scout and Miss Maudie follow them into the kitchen to hear that Tom is dead – shot while trying to climb over the prison fence right in front of the guards. Atticus takes Calpurnia to go tell Tom’s wife Helen, and the other women grimly return to the tea party.

Later, Scout hears a rumor that Ewell said that Tom wasn’t the only one who ought to be taken out and shot. In the meantime Ewell has also been keeping up his grudge campaign, harassing Helen Robinson (until Link Deas makes him stop) and possibly Judge Taylor.

One dark night Jem and Scout are on their way back home from the school’s Halloween pageant when they hear someone following them. Suddenly they’re attacked, though Scout can’t see much because of her costume. When things calm down, one man is on the ground, and another carries the injured and unconscious Jem back to the Finch house, while Scout follows.

At home Aunt Alexandra calls the doctor and Atticus calls the sheriff. Dr. Reynolds arrives and treats Jem; then Mr. Tate comes in and tells them that he’s found the corpse of Mr. Ewell at the site of the attack. Scout tells them what she heard, and realizes that the fourth man – still standing in the room – is Boo Radley.

Atticus thinks that Jem killed Ewell and starts planning his legal defense. Tate says it wasn’t Jem, but Atticus says he won’t let Tate hush it up. Tate eventually convinces Atticus that Jem wasn’t the one who did it, and it would be a sin to drag Boo through a court case. Atticus finally gives in, though he’s worried Scout won’t understand why.

Scout walks Boo home at his request, and then looks at her neighborhood with new eyes from the Radley front porch, thinking about how recent events would have appeared to Boo from this vantage point.

Scout returns home and snuggles up with Atticus, who reads aloud to her until she falls asleep.