Skip to main content

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, why is it weird for an animal to behave the way Tim Johnson did given the time of year?

In Chapter 10, Jem and Scout are outside playing with their air rifles when Jem notices Tim Johnson staggering down the middle of the road. After Calpurnia sees the dog, she immediately recognizes that it is "mad." When Calpurnia speaks to Miss Eula May on the telephone, she says,



“I know it’s February, Miss Eula May, but I know a mad dog when I see one. Please ma’am hurry!” (Lee 58).



Clearly, something is odd about an animal with rabies during the cooler months in Alabama. Apparently, rabies tends to be transmitted more often during the summer months when the weather is warmer which is why Eula May questions Calpurnia. Sheriff Tate then arrives on the scene and gives his rifle to Atticus. Atticus reluctantly takes the weapon and shoots Tim Johnson above his left eye. After witnessing his father's expert marksmanship, Jem is in awe of Atticus' abilities. Miss Maudie then explains why Atticus never bragged about the fact that he was the best shot in Maycomb. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...