Lessons in Maycomb: Scout's Journey with Miss Maudie

1. TKAM chapter 5, 6, and 7 Quotes and notes

2. Chapter 5: miss maudie and the fishing pole note • Scout grows closer to Miss Maudie and becomes more distanced from Jem and Dill • Miss Maudie tells Scout about Mr. Radley’s religious fanaticism. She calls Mr. Radley “a foot-washing Baptist” • They interpret the Bible literally (59). • meaning that he “believe[s] anything that’s pleasure’s a sin” (59). • “There are just some kind of men who – who’re too busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one” (60). • Scout: “Atticus says God’s loving folks like you love yourself –” (60)

3. Atticus’s values • Scout: “ ‘Atticus don’t ever do anything to Jem and me in the house that he don’t do in the yard’” (61). • Miss Maudie: “”Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets” (61) • Values are the same • Doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not

4. Lessons taught by atticus • Letter to Boo Radley: asking him to come out and to tell Jem and Dill what he does in there. They get caught by Atticus and are told to “stop tormenting that man” (65). • Put themselves in his shoes: “What Mr. Radley did might seem peculiar to us, but it did not seem peculiar to him” (65). • respect • live and let live

5. Chapter 6: jem loses his pants and recovers them • Scout’s reply to Dill suggesting they go for a walk foreshadows that something will happen later: • “He sounded fishy to me. Nobody in Maycomb just went for a walk” (68). • Descriptive language and short choppy sentences are used to create suspense in this chapter as the children try to deliver a note to the Radley house: “With this thought in mind, I made perhaps one step per minute. I moved faster when I saw Jem far ahead…We came to the gate that divided the garden from the back yard. Jem touched it. The gate squeaked” (69)

6. Another example of onomatopoeia • “the step squeaked” (71).

7. Maintaining good relations • What does the following quote say about Jem’s relationship with his father: • “ ‘Atticus ain’t ever whipped me since I can remember. I wanta keep it that way’ ” (75).

8. Type of presentation: direct or indirect? • “Jem lay down, and for a while I heard his cot trembling” (76). • What does this sentence imply about Jem?

9. Chapter 7: soap figures; thank you; filling the knot hole • Jem: “ ‘ When I went back, they were folded across the fence… like they were expectin’ me…they’d been sewed up…like somebody was readin’ my mind…like somebody could tell what I was gonna do’ ” (78). • Jem tells Scout: “it was not until one reached the sixth grade that one learned anything of value” (79). • The objects that Jem and Scout found in the knot hole in the tree were meaningful to them, perhaps even more valuable and sentimental to Jem than to Scout:

10. Valuable gifts made jem and scout feel special • The objects that Jem and Scout found in the knot hole in the tree were meaningful to them, perhaps even more valuable and sentimental to Jem than to Scout: • “ ‘Atticus, if it’s all right with you, I’d rather have this [watch] instead. Maybe I can fix it’ ” (81). • Thank you letter: • “we appreciate everything which you have put into the tree for us” (82).

11. Giving and then taking away – it hurts • The knot-hole has been filled with cement • What is Mr. Radley’s motivation for filling the knot-hole? • Jem is sad and is crying again at the end of this chapter: • “When [Jem] went in the house I saw he had been crying” (84).