Lakhasly

In the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the middle of the Great Depression, six-year-old Scout Finch lives with her older brother, Jem, and her widowed father, Atticus.Atticus is a lawyer and makes enough to keep the family comfortably out of poverty, but he works long days.Scout, however, finds Calpurnia tyrannical and believes that Calpurnia favors Jem over her.Scout and Jem spend much of their time creating and acting out fantasies.The three children become friends, and, pushed by Dill's wild imagination, soon become obsessed with a nearby house called Radley Place.Local children believe that he's impossibly tall, drools, and eats neighborhood cats and squirrels.He relies on the family's black cook, Calpurnia, to help raise the kids.That year, Atticus is appointed by the court to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a poor, notoriously vicious white man named Bob Ewell.Atticus explains that Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict and used Jem's daily reading to break herself of her addiction before she died--she wanted to die free.When they return home, Aunt Alexandra, Atticus's sister, is there to stay with them for "a while"--which in Maycomb, could mean any length of time--to provide a "feminine influence" for Scout. Scout is skeptical and takes major offense to Aunt Alexandra, especially when she forbids Scout from visiting Calpurnia's home. Aunt Alexandra's social views are, in general, more conservative than Atticus's. She treats Calpurnia more like a servant than a family member and tries to impress upon the children that the Finches are a "Fine Family" because they've been on the same land for generations.Atticus pleads with Scout to not beat people up when they hurl insults at her about it, something that Scout struggles with greatly at Christmas.Later in the winter, as Scout and Jem take out their new air rifles to hunt for rabbits, they discover a beloved Maycomb dog named Tim Johnson behaving strangely.Calpurnia recognizes that the dog has rabies, alerts the neighbors, and calls Atticus and the sheriff, Heck Tate.Jem is able to ignore her abuse for a while, until one day when she hurls slurs and insults at him about Atticus defending Tom Robinson.Later at home, Scout tells Uncle Jack where he went wrong: he never asked for her side of the story and punished her based on Francis's incorrect assertion, and she begs him to keep this entire situation a secret from Atticus.Jem retaliates by cutting the tops off of her beloved camellia bushes.Atticus admits that he made Jem read because he wanted Jem to see that courage isn't a man with a gun--it's doing something you know is right, even if you know you'll fail.Racial tensions in Maycomb flare.Scout and Jem become targets of abuse from schoolmates, neighbors, townspeople, and even some family members.His only advice is that it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

In the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the middle of the Great Depression, six-year-old Scout Finch lives with her older brother, Jem, and her widowed father, Atticus.Atticus is a lawyer and makes enough to keep the family comfortably out of poverty, but he works long days.Scout, however, finds Calpurnia tyrannical and believes that Calpurnia favors Jem over her.Scout and Jem spend much of their time creating and acting out fantasies.The three children become friends, and, pushed by Dill's wild imagination, soon become obsessed with a nearby house called Radley Place.Local children believe that he's impossibly tall, drools, and eats neighborhood cats and squirrels.He relies on the family's black cook, Calpurnia, to help raise the kids.

Summer ends, and Dill returns to Mississippi.The highlights of the school year come when Scout and Jem occasionally find treasures stuffed into a knothole of a tree next to the Radleys' fence.Jem realizes that Boo must have done it. Scout is horrified, but Atticus stifles his laughter.When she comes home from school upset, Atticus encourages her to think about how Miss Caroline must've felt--she had no idea how to deal with the eccentricities of Maycomb children, just as Scout had no idea how to deal with her odd teacher.When Jem goes back to Radleys' fence to retrieve the pants later that night, he finds them mended and folded.Meanwhile, Scout and Jem continue to find gifts in the knothole until Nathan Radley cements it shut, claiming that the tree is dying.A few months later, in the dead of winter, the Finch's neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson's house catches fire, and as Scout and Finch watch it burn, someone Scout doesn't see puts a blanket around her shoulders.He, Scout, and Jem grow more daring and sneak onto the Radley property one night to look in the window, but Nathan Radley sees them and thinks they're thieves.Summer arrives and Dill returns.
That year, Atticus is appointed by the court to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a poor, notoriously vicious white man named Bob Ewell.Atticus explains that Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict and used Jem's daily reading to break herself of her addiction before she died--she wanted to die free.When they return home, Aunt Alexandra, Atticus's sister, is there to stay with them for "a while"--which in Maycomb, could mean any length of time--to provide a "feminine influence" for Scout. Scout is skeptical and takes major offense to Aunt Alexandra, especially when she forbids Scout from visiting Calpurnia's home.

Aunt Alexandra's social views are, in general, more conservative than Atticus's. She treats Calpurnia more like a servant than a family member and tries to impress upon the children that the Finches are a "Fine Family" because they've been on the same land for generations.Atticus pleads with Scout to not beat people up when they hurl insults at her about it, something that Scout struggles with greatly at Christmas.Later in the winter, as Scout and Jem take out their new air rifles to hunt for rabbits, they discover a beloved Maycomb dog named Tim Johnson behaving strangely.Calpurnia recognizes that the dog has rabies, alerts the neighbors, and calls Atticus and the sheriff, Heck Tate.Jem is able to ignore her abuse for a while, until one day when she hurls slurs and insults at him about Atticus defending Tom Robinson.Later at home, Scout tells Uncle Jack where he went wrong: he never asked for her side of the story and punished her based on Francis's incorrect assertion, and she begs him to keep this entire situation a secret from Atticus.Jem retaliates by cutting the tops off of her beloved camellia bushes.Atticus admits that he made Jem read because he wanted Jem to see that courage isn't a man with a gun--it's doing something you know is right, even if you know you'll fail.Racial tensions in Maycomb flare.Scout and Jem become targets of abuse from schoolmates, neighbors, townspeople, and even some family members.His only advice is that it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

The weekend before Tom Robinson's trial, Scout, Jem, and Dill observe tensions in Maycomb rising.At the trial, Atticus presents a powerful defense of Tom and makes it clear that both Mayella and Mr. Ewell are lying, since Tom doesn't have the use of his left arm and couldn't have choked and beaten a woman, and Mayella's injuries indicate that whoever beat her was left-handed.Mr. Tate decides to keep Boo's involvement in Mr. Ewell's death quiet, which Scout understands--she suggests to Atticus that punishing him would be like killing a mockingbird.Scout, Jem, and Dill sneak out of the house to figure out where Atticus went and join Atticus at the courthouse, who anticipated a mob attack on Tom.The next morning, this event transforms into a wild story of bravery that delights Dill and annoys Aunt Alexandra.Rather, Atticus suggests that Mr. Ewell, who is left-handed, beat Mayella himself when he caught Mayella touching Tom.However, as Jem and Scout walk home alone from a Halloween pageant one night, Mr. Ewell attacks them.The man who saved Jem and Scout carries Jem home, and once inside, Scout realizes that the man is Boo Radley.Groups of men congregate on the Finches' lawn, something that, in Scout's experience, only happens when someone dies or when people want to discuss politics.Scout doesn't realize what's going on and is scared and uncomfortable when she finds herself in the middle of a group of men she doesn't know, especially when she realizes that Atticus is scared.She recognizes a man named Mr. Cunningham in the crowd and asks him about his son, Walter, who is Scout's classmate.Scout, Jem, and Dill sneak into the trial and watch the proceedings from the balcony, where the black people are forced to sit.The man, shamed, disperses the mob.