
Scout is almost six, and Jem is almost ten. The novel takes begins during the summer. However, Jem can remember his mother and Scout notices that he is occasionally nostalgic about her. Scout describes as her father as entirely "satisfactory," and her family's black cook, Calpurnia, as strict and "tyrannical." Scout and Jem's mother died of a heart attack when Scout was two and she has no memories of her. She notes, "There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County". Scout then describes Depression-era Maycomb, "an old tired town when I first knew it", summer heat and slow pace of life. They instead pled not guilty for first-degree murder, and were hanged, marking "probably the beginning of my father's profound distaste for criminal law."
To kill a mockingbird summary code#
Atticus began his law practice in Maycomb, the county seat of Maycomb County, where his "office in the courthouse contained little more than a hat rack, a spittoon, a checkerboard, and an unsullied Code of Alabama." His first case entailed defending two men who refused to plead guilty for second-degree murder. Their sister Alexandra remained at Finch's Landing. Scout's father, Atticus Finch, studied law in Montgomery while supporting his brother, John "Jack" Hale Finch, who was in medical school in Boston. The family lost its wealth in the Civil War. Having bought several slaves, he established a largely self-sufficient homestead and farm, Finch's Landing, near Saint Stephens. Their ancestor, a Methodist named Simon Finch, fled British persecution and eventually settled in Alabama, where he trapped animals for fur and practiced medicine. Next, Lee provides an overview of Finch family history. She realizes that once you get to know them, most people are good and kind no matter what they seem like on the outside.The chapter opens with the introduction of the narrator, Scout (Jean Louise) Finch, her older brother Jem (Jeremy), and their friend and neighbor, Dill (Charles Baker Harris). No one is lesser or better than anyone else because they're all people. Through the events of those two years, Scout learns that no matter their differences or peculiarities, the people of the world and of Maycomb County are all people. Boo Radley returns home never to be seen again. In order to protect Boo's privacy, the sheriff decides that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife while he was struggling with Jem. After Jem's arm is badly broken, their ghostly neighbor, Boo Radley, rescues Scout and her brother. On the way home from a pageant, Bob Ewell attacks Jem and Scout in the darkness. It seems that the case is finally over and life returns to normal until Halloween night. Tom Robinson is sent to a work prison to await another trial, but before Atticus can get him to court again, Tom is shot for trying to escape the prison. Despite Ewell's vow to avenge himself against Atticus, Atticus doesn't view Ewell as any real threat. The only real enemy that Atticus made during the case was Bob Ewell, the trashy white man who accused Tom Robinson of raping his daughter. Scout and Jem are forced to bear the slurs against their father and watch with shock and disillusionment as their fellow townspeople convict an obviously innocent man because of his race.

The case is the biggest thing to hit Maycomb County in years and it turns the whole town against Atticus, or so it seems. When he takes on a case that pits innocent, black Tom Robinson against two dishonest white people, Atticus knows that he will lose, but he has to defend the man or he can't live with himself. Scout and Jem's God-like father, Atticus, is a respected and upstanding lawyer in small Maycomb County. However, these brushes with the neighborhood ghost result in a tentative friendship over time and soon the Finch children realize that Boo Radley deserves to live in peace, so they leave him alone. They go through plan after plan, but nothing draws him out.

Dill and Jem become obsessed with the idea of making Boo Radley, the neighborhood recluse, come out of his home. The summer when Scout was six and Jem was ten, they met Dill, a little boy who spent the summer with his aunt who lived next door to the Finches. Through their neighborhood meanderings and the example of their father, they grow to understand that the world isn't always fair and that prejudice is a very real aspect of their world no matter how subtle it seems. To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story of Scout Finch and her brother, Jem, in 1930's Alabama.
