To kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee

Harper LEE, To Kill A Mockingbird

Chapter 1

The narrator, Scout, is looking back on her childhood in Maycomb, Alabama.

She is now an adult but she narrates the events from her childhood perspective.

The story is told in retrospect, with a child’s eye and voice.

The first person point of view creates intimacy and authenticity.

In the opening sentence, the narrator mentions a climactic event, which happens at the end of the novel. When he was nearly 13, Jem ‘’got his arm badly broken’’, the narrator is going to relate what led to that injury.

According to Jem, it all ‘’began the summer Dill came to us‘’ whereas Scout maintains ‘’the Ewells started it all.’’ Atticus at some point settled the argument by saying they were both right.

The reader is here introduced to the two plot lines of the novel: the one involving the children and Boo Radley and the trial of Tom Robinson. These two plot lines will converge later on.

In this first chapter, Harper Lee provides some background information about the Finch family and their ancestor, Simon Finch, and about Maycomb. Scout’s description is here more of an adult’s recollection.

The story takes place in a small Southern town of the United States in the early 1930s, during segregation and the Great Depression. The novel will tackle the issues of poverty and racism.

The sentence ‘’Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself’’ hints that the story starts in the summer of 1933.

Indeed, ‘’We have nothing to fear but fear itself’’ is the most famous line from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural speech as the newly elected president.

In 1933, Dill comes from Meridian, Mississippi for the first time to spend the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel. He is very proud to say he can read. He becomes Jem and Scout’s playmate. He is fascinated by the Radley Place, the haunted house of Maycomb, inhabited by ‘’a malevolent phantom’’: Arthur Radley, who has been locked up in the house for more than 15 years. ‘’From the day Mr Radley took Arthur home, people said the house died.’’

Dill is the one who suggests they try and make Boo come out.

Dill brings his powerful imagination to Maycomb. He is described as ‘’a pocket Merlin’’, ‘’whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies.’’

The narrator tells the story of Arthur Radley / Boo Radley and the circumstances that led to him being locked up. There are wild rumours about Boo in town and he becomes the focus of the children’s curiosity. Dill dares Jem to run up and touch the Radley house, which he does at the end of the chapter.

Scout’s first day of school

Chapters 2 and 3 :

Dill leaves in early September for the school year.

Scout was really looking forward to starting school but she is strongly disappointed.

Miss Caroline, the teacher, is new to Maycomb (she is from North Alabama) and new to teaching, too.

She is displeased when she finds out that Scout can read and write. She doesn’t want Scout’s father to interfere any more with her learning and forbids Scout to read at home.

She adds she will ‘’try to undo the damage’’.

Scout can’t remember not being able to read. When they first meet Dill, Jem tells him Scout has been reading ever since she was born. ‘’Reading was something that just came to me’’. Reading is like ‘’breathing’’ to her. But she gets the impression that it is like a sin when done out of class.

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