To Kill a Mockingbird: Chapters 13 - 18
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:27 pm
To Kill a Mockingbird
Please use this thread to discuss Chapters 13 through 18.Quality books. Great conversations.
https://www.booktalk.org/
The idea seems to be that Atticus is an innocent child who does not understand what he has got into in defending a black man charged with raping a white woman. The girls just seem to be a distraction from the blatant racist intent of the cartoon, which is that no self-respecting white lawyer would defend a black who deserves to be lynched.We were surprised one morning to see a cartoon in the Montgomery Advertiser above the caption, “Maycomb’s Finch.” It showed Atticus barefooted and in short pants, chained to a desk: he was diligently writing on a slate while some frivolous looking girls yelled, “Yoo-hoo!” at him.
“That’s a compliment,” explained Jem. “He spends his time doin‘ things that wouldn’t get done if nobody did ’em.” “Huh?” In addition to Jem’s newly developed characteristics, he had acquired a maddening air of wisdom. “Oh, Scout, it’s like reorganizing the tax systems of the counties and things. That kind of thing’s pretty dry to most men.” “How do you know?” “Oh, go on and leave me alone. I’m readin‘ the paper.” Jem got his wish. I departed for the kitchen.
Her obsession with heredity and family prestige reflects detailed historical knowledge of the mildly incestuous context of Maycomb, in which the Finch family has high status that has not been properly explained to the semi-feral children Jem and Scout. Atticus is incapable of the racial logic required to properly understand family pride in the way Aunt Alexandra demands. The caste system of Maycomb is very real, but in her view does not even include blacks, who as per our current discussion of Caste by Isabel Wilkerson are America’s Untouchables, to be resolutely ignored.“Aunt Alexandra was one of the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was born in the objective case; she was an incurable gossip. When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning. She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn.”
There was indeed a caste system in Maycomb, but to my mind it worked this way: the older citizens, the present generation of people who had lived side by side for years and years, were utterly predictable to one another: they took for granted attitudes, character shadings, even gestures, as having been repeated in each generation and refined by time. Thus the dicta No Crawford Minds His Own Business, Every Third Merriweather Is Morbid, The Truth Is Not in the Delafields, All the Bufords Walk Like That, were simply guides to daily living.
DWill wrote: I was surprised, nonetheless, after reading the sentence about caste, to see that the narrator doesn't deal with anything close to what we might think of as caste. There appears to be a lack of insight in this particular instance, or at least an entirely different view of what caste is.
I guess I took it to be an expression of people's views on the immutability of character as passed down through family. It is interesting to speculate whether it is meant to be the view of young Scout or of grown Jean Louise, or even of Harper Lee herself. Either way, however, I think it is aimed mainly at the unexpected perspective. Thinking of caste as the result of reincarnation, for example, one is fated to the position one occupies. She is apparently recognizing these enduring family traits as a kind of freezing of positions, a fate from which one cannot escape. It's a dizzying notion, really, as if there are archetypal personalities and one's family leanings steer one into a particular role in an inescapable way. And yet it captures something essential about the interactions of personalities in a closed system.There was indeed a caste system in Maycomb, but to my mind it worked this way: the older citizens, the present generation of people who had lived side by side for years and years, were utterly predictable to one another: they took for granted attitudes, character shadings, even gestures, as having been repeated in each generation and refined by time. Thus the dicta No Crawford Minds His Own Business, Every Third Merriweather Is Morbid, The Truth Is Not in the Delafields, All the Bufords Walk Like That, were simply guides to daily living
It must be the film you're referring to. I couldn't recall the scene in the book, which I recently reread. I find that Tess came to Angel's parents' house when everyone was away at church. She loses her resolve and trods back to the farm that employed her, not before hearing some unpleasant chatter from Angel's brothers. An interesting choice by Polanski to have Tess encounter her in-laws. I should watch the film again.Harry Marks wrote: There is a famous scene in "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" in which Tess encounters the parents of Angel Clare while she is is dire distress. If she had felt she could turn to them for help, she would have been saved, but the distance between them, their very propriety and generosity, puts her off. The scene is a symbol for vast social forces, the kind Thomas Hardy so expertly saw and showed. It seems to me that this scene of Scout's blundering, innocent intervention that paradoxically saves the situation ranks with such an all-time great symbolism.
Harper Lee continues this touchingly naïve characterisation of Scout as at once with the wisdom of the ancients and the innocence of a child. Of course no one has died. This is about politics.There’s some men outside in the yard, they want you to come out.” In Maycomb, grown men stood outside in the front yard for only two reasons: death and politics. I wondered who had died. Jem and I went to the front door, but Atticus called, “Go back in the house.”
“The men were dressed, most of them, in overalls and denim shirts buttoned up to the collars. I thought they must be cold-natured, as their sleeves were unrolled and buttoned at the cuffs. Some wore hats pulled firmly down over their ears. They were sullen-looking, sleepy-eyed men who seemed unused to late hours. I sought once more for a familiar face, and at the center of the semi-circle I found one. “Hey, Mr. Cunningham.”
By concealing information about racism from their black servant, Alexandra advocates systematic deception, a life of pretend. She expresses this with the principle that it is essential not to encourage black people, although exactly where she might place the boundaries of such discouragement is left unstated.Aunt Alexandra waited until Calpurnia was in the kitchen, then she said, “Don’t talk like that in front of them.” “Talk like what in front of whom?” he asked. “Like that in front of Calpurnia. You said Braxton Underwood despises Negroes right in front of her.” “Well, I’m sure Cal knows it. Everybody in Maycomb knows it.” I was beginning to notice a subtle change in my father these days, that came out when he talked with Aunt Alexandra. It was a quiet digging in, never outright irritation. There was a faint starchiness in his voice when he said, “Anything fit to say at the table’s fit to say in front of Calpurnia. She knows what she means to this family.”
The result of all this, of course, is that the Finch Standoff of Maycomb Jail becomes the hot gossip item for the town. How a single three year old girl wrestled eight grown men to the ground and sent them oinking away with their tails between their legs.Alexandra said “I don’t think it’s a good habit, Atticus. It encourages them. You know how they talk among themselves. Every thing that happens in this town’s out to the Quarters before sundown.” My father put down his knife. “I don’t know of any law that says they can’t talk. Maybe if we didn’t give them so much to talk about they’d be quiet. Why don’t you drink your coffee, Scout?” I was playing in it with the spoon. “I thought Mr. Cunningham was a friend of ours. You told me a long time ago he was.” “He still is.” “But last night he wanted to hurt you.” Atticus placed his fork beside his knife and pushed his plate aside. “Mr. Cunningham’s basically a good man,” he said, “he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.” Jem spoke. “Don’t call that a blind spot. He’da killed you last night when he first went there. “ “He might have hurt me a little,” Atticus conceded, “but son, you’ll understand folks a little better when you’re older. A mob’s always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know— doesn’t say much for them, does it?” “I’ll say not,” said Jem. “So it took an eight-year-old child to bring ‘em to their senses, didn’t it?” said Atticus. “That proves something—that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children… you children last night made Walter Cunningham stand in my shoes for a minute. That was enough.”
The hypocrisy here is that the supremacists find it reasonable for a court to have the appearance of due process, as long as full care is taken to prevent the reality of due process. The dustup is because Atticus refuses to go along with the charade, and instead makes himself the most admired lawyer in American literature.The court appointed Atticus to defend him. Atticus aimed to defend him. That’s what they didn’t like about it. It was confusing.