To Kill A Mockingbird Tone /Mood /Narrative

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Mood

Generally light and humorous

Underlying mood is dark and somber

Setting

Maycomb County Descriptions

"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it." - Scout

"Tired and Old" Used to show the contrast between the adults and children. These adjectives are chosen instead of positive ones to represent the hard times and reflect how different parts of society react

"In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop, grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square." - Scout

"Somehow, it was hotter then; a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square." - Scout

"Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft tea-cakes with frostings of sweat and talcum." - Scout

"People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and our of the stores around it, took their time about everything." - Scout

"A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer." - Scout

"There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb Country." - Scout

"Maycomb Country had recently been told that it had nothing to feat but fear itself" - Scout

"Nothing is more deadly than deserted waiting street." - Scout

Negroe's cabins

Positive descriptions, "their cabins looked neat and snug"

Sensory Images: "there were delicious smells about: chicken, bacon frying crisply"

Appealing/attractive descriptions juxtapose with the Ewell's cabin - a "playhouse of an insane child"

Despite these descriptions, the location of these cabins - next to the garbage dump - reminds us of the Negroe's status as bottom of the social class conventional racist attitudes of Maycomb folk

These descriptions do not suggest a reason as to why they are so heavily discriminated against

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Plot analysis

There are two parts, part two being the longer

Part one

Focuses on Jem, Scout and Atticus

Children introduced to racial prejudice

Miss Maudie's house burns down

Atticus shoots mad dog

Obsession with Boo Radley

Children meet Mrs. Dubose

Part two

Focuses largely on Tom Robinson's trial

Tom Robinson loses and is shot dead

Boo Radley saves scout from Bob Ewell

Unifying factors

Boo Radley is present in both parts, tying the story together

Foreshadowing

Scout standing up for Walter Cunningham and Atticus helping Mr Cunningham foreshadow Mr Cunningham leaving them alone at the jail later on

We meet the vulgar Burris Ewell, foreshadowing the even more menacing figure, Bob Ewell, whom we meet later

The introduction of the Black Community foreshadow Tom Robinson's trial and help us understand his innocent nature/background

Boo gives Scout a blanket at the fire, foreshadowing the greater role he plays when he saves her from Bob Ewell

Atticus shows Bob Ewell to be left-handed, foreshadowing the fact that Tom Robinson has a deformed left arm

Bob Ewells threats to Atticus, Aunt's remark, "Someone just walked over my grave", and the dark stormy conditions of Halloween night foreshadow Mr Ewell's attacks on the children on Halloween

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Narrative

Written in hindsight

Looking back on the past/her childhood

Scout as an adult

Mix of emotions and thoughts as she reflects

Significant event that has shaped her as an adult

She is 5 when the story begins, 8 by the ending

Written from a child's perspective - as she understood the events at the time

Effect of this narrative

Child's point of view = innocent, naive and not tainted by experience

Writing as an adult = she relates experiences Scout did not understand = this contributes to the reader's engagement and humor

Injustice stands out. Only the children realize the prejudice making the whole idea of racial prejudice absurd

Why does Harper Lee use Scout to narrate the novel?

To create humor

Emphasize the theme of child innocence

To show how innocence is corrupted by society

1. Create humor:

"fruitless efforts to teach me group dynamics"

"my teachers thought essential"

2. Child innocence

"I examined my loot"

"What you reckon... Jem?"

"Lived a malevolent phantom"

"Why couldn't I mash him?"

"I think there's one under my bed. Can you come look?

"How does a snake feel?"

3. Innocence corrupted

"He's just a Cunningham"

"Thats nigger talk"

"Well Dill, after all he's justa Nego"