TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1960) by Harper Lee

1. GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PLOT. Would you like to highlight any aspect of
the novel?

1. The novel's title appears three times and this songbird and its associated symbolism stand as a
key motif. What do you think To Kill A Mockingbird stands for?

2. The novel begins as the voice of a mature adult recalling events from childhood and sometimes
shifts to the point of view of a 6-year-old. Is this narrative perspective significant? How would
have the novel changed if it were told by any other character?

3. The story is set in a small town in southern Alabama during the 1930s Depression, a setting
that partially explains why many of the characters hold stereotypes about individuals in terms of
age, gender, race and class. Which characters are the victims of stereotyping? Do any of them
break through the behaviour expected of them?

4. What parts of the story held your interest most strongly? Why? What parts seemed less
interesting? Why?

2. Read the extracts below and locate them within the novel’s storyline. What is the
significance of each extract?

“I can read.” “So what?” I said. “I just thought you’d like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin‘ I can do it…” “How
old are you,” asked Jem, “four-and-a-half?” “Goin‘ on seven.”. (p. 7)

Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went
out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because
he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work. (p. 9)

“There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into,” murmured Calpurnia, and she spat meditatively into the yard. We
looked at her in surprise, for Calpurnia rarely commented on the ways of white people. (p.13)

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. (p. 20)

“There’s some folks who don’t eat like us,” she whispered fiercely, “but you ain’t called on to contradict ‘em at the table when
they don’t. That boy’s yo’ comp’ny and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?” (p. 27)

“Do you know what a compromise is?” he asked. “Bending the law?” “No, an agreement reached by mutual concessions. It
works this way,” he said. “If you’ll concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night just as we always
have. Is it a bargain?”(p. 35)

“Foot-washers believe anything that’s pleasure is a sin. Did you know some of ‘em came out of the woods one Saturday and
passed by this place and told me me and my flowers were going to hell?” (p.49)

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“Why no, son, I don’t think so. Look at the leaves, they’re all green and full, no brown patches anywhere—” “It ain’t even sick?”
“That tree’s as healthy as you are, Jem. Why?” “Mr. Nathan Radley said it was dyin‘.” “Well maybe it is. I’m sure Mr. Radley
knows more about his trees than we do.”. (p. 71)

“If you shouldn’t be defendin‘ him, then why are you doin’ it?” “For a number of reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I
didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not
to do something again.”. (p. 83)

“You like words like damn and hell now, don’t you?” I said I reckoned so. “Well I don’t,” said Uncle Jack, “not unless there’s
extreme provocation connected with ‘em. I’ll be here a week, and I don’t want to hear any words like that while I’m here. Scout,
you’ll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?” (pp. 87-88)

“I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit
‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something,
and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to
enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.
That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (pp. 99-100)

He did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was
littered with green buds and leaves. He bent my baton against his knee, snapped it in two and threw it down.. (p. 114)

Scout,” said Atticus, “nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don’t mean anything—like snot-nose. It’s hard to explain—
ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody’s favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It’s slipped into
usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.” “You aren’t really a nigger-
lover, then, are you?” “I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody… (p. 120)

The fact that I had a permanent fiancé was little compensation for his absence (p. 128)

“I should have been the one inside the house when it happened” (p. 194)

Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy
all clergymen”. (p. 134)

She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise,
caution, and warn. (p. 142)

“Why do you reckon Boo Radley’s never run off?” Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me. “Maybe he doesn’t have
anywhere to run off to…” (p. 159)

“I’ll tell him you said hey, little lady,” he said. Then he straightened up and waved a big paw. “Let’s clear out,” he called. “Let’s
get going, boys.” (p. 170).

She was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she
lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was white.. (p. 211-12).

“She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not
an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it (p. 225)

Calpurnia said, “This was all ‘round the back steps when I got here this morning. They—they ’preciate what you did, Mr. Finch.
They—they aren’t oversteppin‘ themselves, are they?” Atticus’s eyes filled with tears. He did not speak for a moment. “Tell

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Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in
the house all this time… it’s because he wants to stay inside.”. (p. 251)

“That’s the difference between America and Germany. We are a democracy and Germany is a dictatorship. Dictator-ship,” she
said. “Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. Prejudice,” she
enunciated carefully. “There are no better people in the world than the Jews, and why Hitler doesn’t think so is a mystery to
me.” (p.271)

“Mr. Finch, there’s just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to ‘em. Even then, they ain’t worth the
bullet it takes to shoot ’em. Ewell ‘as one of ’em.” (p. 296 )
Atticus, he was real nice…” His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. “Most people are,
Scout, when you finally see them.” He turned out the light and went into Jem’s room. He would be there all night, and he would
be there when Jem waked up in the morning. (p.309)

3. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1) One of the book's recurrent topics is empathy. Atticus tells the children several times that before
judging others, they must "walk in their shoes." Does empathy equal justice and morality throughout
the novel?

2) How do you think Atticus manages his role as a single parent? What other paternal/maternal
figures do the Finch siblings have? What does Atticus's defense of Tom Robinson say about him as
a man and about his parenting, if anything?

3) One of the chief criticisms of To Kill a Mockingbird is that the two central storylines -- Scout,
Jem, and Dill's fascination with Boo Radley and the trial between Mayella Ewell and Tom Robinson
-- are not sufficiently connected in the novel. Do you think that Lee is successful in incorporating
these different stories? Were you surprised at the way in which these story lines were resolved?
Why or why not?

4) By the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, the book's first sentence: "When he was thirteen, my
brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow," has been explained and resolved. What did you
think of the events that followed the Halloween pageant? Did you think that Bob Ewell was capable
of injuring Scout or Jem? How did you feel about Boo Radley's last-minute intervention?

5) What elements of this book did you find especially memorable, humorous, or inspiring? Are there
individual characters whose beliefs, acts, or motives especially impressed or surprised you? Did any
events in this book cause you to reconsider your childhood memories or experiences in a new light?

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