Skip to main content

In what ways does Miss Maudie provide background information for each individual in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

In multiple places throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses Miss Maudie to reveal further background information about the characters through things Miss Maudie says about them, giving us a new perspective.


One example can be seen in the information she relays to Scout concerning Arthur (Boo) Radley. In Chapter 5, author Lee uses Miss Maudie to quiet any rumors and myths surrounding Arthur Radley, particularly those told to the children by Miss Stephanie Crawford such as the notion that Arthur peeks in windows at night. Beyond quieting rumors, Miss Maudie explains that Arthur's father was a foot-washing Baptist, a denomination that interprets the Bible very literally. According to Miss Maudie, "Foot-washers believe anything that's pleasure is a sin" (Ch. 5). Through her account of Arthur's background, Miss Maudie offers a plausible explanation for why Arthur never leaves his house--he has been taught that doing something that would bring him pleasure, such as escaping house arrest, would be sinful. Miss Maudie further quiets rumors about Arthur by stating, "I remember Arthur Radley when he was a boy. He always spoke nicely to me, no matter what folks said he did. Spoke as nicely as he knew how" (Ch. 5). Miss Maudie's revelations about Arthur help paint the picture in the reader's mind that Arthur is a severely misjudged, deeply caring person who is dealing with the struggles of his own personal hardships laid upon him by the beliefs of his father.

A second example of Miss Maudie shedding further light on a character can be seen when Miss Maudie converses with the children about their father the day after the trial. Miss Maudie invites the children to her home for cake with the intention of making the children feel better by helping them see the trial and it's outcome in a more positive light. In so doing, she also sheds light on Atticus's character. Through the many things she says about Atticus, she paints him as a brave man willing to do the right thing when others won't, as one devoted to acting like a true Christian, and as one who is strong and clever enough to be able to influence others. She paints him as a true Christian when she says, "We're so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we've got men like Atticus to go for us" (Ch. 22). She also paints him as being able to take a stand in doing what's right and being able to influence others when she notes that, as she waited for the Finches to come home from the trial, she thought to herself, "Atticus Finch won't win, he can't win, but he's the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that" (Ch. 22). Prior to Miss Maudie's comments, the reader only primarily sees Atticus through the eyes of his children and the townspeople who ridicule him. Miss Maudie's comments allow the reader to see that other characters recognize Atticus as a brave and noble person.

Comments

Post a Comment

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more