To Kill a Mockingbird Ch1-2-3

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 5

To Kill a Mockingbird

Chapter 1-2-3

To prepare for the TEST on To Kill a Mockingbird, it is crucial that you keep up  with all the reading. After you have read a chapter, try to answer the questions in the booklet.

1. What happens to Scout on her first day of school?

When Miss Caroline finds out that Atticus has (unwillingly) taught Scout to read, she becomes very displeased and makes Scout feel guilty for being educated.

2. What kind of teacher is Miss Caroline, Scouts 1st grade teacher?

 She is book smart, but does not understand their world (farmers!) at all.

She is attractive and young, but she is so inexperienced that she makes mistakes such as accidentally shaming Walter Cunningham and trying to control Burris Ewell.

She insists that things get done her way.

3. What characteristics do the residents of Maycomb automatically asscociate with the "Cunningham tribe"?

Walter's lack of a lunch and refusal of a loan to the teacher: he is too poor to pay back a quarter. 

4. Compare and contrast Burris Ewell with Walter Cunningham.

Walter Cunningham is a poor white boy
                                                             ↔ Burris Ewell is poor white trash.

Though poor, the Cunningham family has values and dignity (they always pay back, though not with money)

                                         ↔ Ewell family: lazy, father collects a welfare
                                        check, wastes it by drinking away much of it,                            his children are neglected physically and spiritually.

5. What facts are revealed about the history of the Radley's in chapter 1? Gossip?

Boo hung out with the wrong crowd as a teenager. The other boys got sent off to reform school but Boo’s father kept him at home as his form of punishment.

"Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks."

"He dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch."

"His hands were bloodstained because once you ate a raw animal, the blood would not wash off."

6. What does the line "Maycomb County had recently been told it had nothing to fear but fear itself" reveal about the setting?

This was used in president Roosevelt's inaugural speech in 1933 in which he tried to reassure America that the country could turn things around. Fear of what we don’t know is a driving factor in many prejudices.

-> Na de beurscrash in 1929, was het een enge tijd om te leven; er was geen geld/werk/eten...

7. Why does Calpurnia scold Scout? Her role in the household?

When Scout criticizes Walter for pouring syrup all over his food, Cal calls her out to the kitchen and gives her a verbal lashing.

Calpurnia is the Finch’s black housekeeper. She takes care of them, but she also disciplines the children.

Atticus holds her in very high esteem and insists that the children respect her completely.

8. What does Atticus's comments about the Ewell family and law suggest about his view of justice?

The Ewells broke the law regularly, but that was the Ewell way, and the people of Maycomb usually cast a blind eye at their activities.

Like their home, which was on the wrong side of the tracks, they lived a life apart from the rest of the decent people of Maycomb.

=> They lived outside the law

Read Chapter 4-5 by 5/10!