To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird
Character List & Major Themes
A study guide for students exploring Harper Lee's landmark novel — its unforgettable characters and the enduring moral questions at its heart.
Scout (Jean Louise Finch)
The narrator and main character who begins her story at almost six years old. A rebellious tomboy, Scout has a fierce disposition toward any who challenge her, but at heart she believes in the goodness of people. Scout reacts to the terrible events of the book without losing hope in humanity.
Character
Jem (Jeremy Finch)
Scout's older brother, who is nearly ten at the beginning of the story. Jem is quieter and more reserved than his sister, and has very high standards and expectations for people. When these expectations are not met, Jem has a difficult time resolving his feelings.
Dill (Charles Baker Harris)
Who He Is
A friend of the Finch children, who is a little older than Scout, quite short for his age, has an active imagination, and exhibits a strong sense of adventure.
His Role
He initiates the first expeditions toward the Radley house, and is Scout's best friend. Dill spends summers with his aunt, who lives next door to the Finch family.
His Struggles
His family life is less than ideal, and he tends to resort to escapism when confronted with difficult situations.
Atticus Finch
The father of Scout and Jem, Atticus is a lawyer and an extremely morally upright man who strives to deal with everyone fairly. Atticus is sometimes overly optimistic, but his unshakable hope in mankind and self-created role as the town 'do-gooder' sustain him. Atticus' wife died when Scout was very small, and he has raised his children only with the assistance of Calpurnia, his black housekeeper and cook.
Character
Boo Radley
A recluse who never emerges from his house. As a young boy, he was in trouble with the police, and his strictly religious and reclusive parents have kept him indoors ever since. A prisoner in his home, he stabbed his father with scissors once, and no one has seen him since.
The town has developed a myth that he is an insane monster who wanders around at night peering into people's windows. Throughout the book, he lives with his brother, who is highly controlling.
Tom Robinson
A black man who stands falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell. Atticus agrees to take his case, even though he knows it is probably hopeless, if only to show the white community its own moral degeneracy.
Tom Robinson's trial is the moral center of the novel — a test of justice, courage, and the conscience of an entire community.
Character
Calpurnia
A black woman who works as the Finch family's cook and housekeeper. She is one of the many motherly figures in Scout's life and one of the few who can negotiate between the very separate black and white worlds of Maycomb.
Aunt Alexandra & Miss Maudie Atkinson
Aunt Alexandra
Atticus's sister, who has very strict, traditional ideas of how society works and the role a Southern woman should play. She earnestly tries to pass along this information to Scout, who is not particularly interested. Alexandra is concerned with raising Atticus's children "properly," and thus appears during the summer of Tom's trial to stay with them.
Miss Maudie Atkinson
A kind, cheerful, and witty neighbor and trusted friend of Scout's, who also upholds a strong moral code and helps the children gain perspective on the events surrounding the trial. She also loves gardening.
Bob Ewell
An evil, ignorant man who belongs to the lowest substratum of Maycomb society. He lives with his nine motherless children in a shack near the town dump. Evidence from the trial suggests that he caught his daughter kissing Tom, proceeded to beat her, and then encouraged her to claim Tom raped her. He drinks heavily and spends his relief checks on whiskey rather than food for his family. Bob holds a strong grudge against Atticus and attacks his children at the end of the novel.
Character
Mayella Ewell
The oldest of the many Ewell children, at age nineteen. She lives a miserable and lonely existence, despised by whites and prohibited from befriending blacks. However, she breaks a social taboo by trying to seduce Tom, then reacts with cowardice by accusing him of rape and perjuring against him in court.
Supporting Characters
Heck Tate
Maycomb County's trusty sheriff, who is ultimately an honest and upstanding man.
Reverend Sykes
The reverend for the all-black congregation, First Purchase African M.E. church, which Scout and Jem visit one day with Calpurnia.
Judge Taylor
The judge for Tom's trial. Taylor is a good, sensible man with a sense of humor, who manages a strict courtroom.
Mr. Gilmer
Lawyer for the Ewell family in Tom Robinson's case.
Mrs. Dubose
A mean, sick, very old woman who lives near the Finch family. Jem unknowingly assists her with her heroic attempt to conquer her morphine addiction, a fight that wins her Atticus's highest praises.
Additional Characters
Walter Cunningham
A poor farmer deeply moved by Scout's friendly words at the jail, who leads the men home and ever after respects the Finch family greatly.
Walter Cunningham Jr.
Son of the other Walter, who attends first grade with Scout.
Adolphus Raymond
A white man who chose to marry a black woman and have "mixed" children. He pretends to be a drunk so that the townspeople will have a way to more comfortably explain his behavior and life choices.
Helen Robinson
Wife of Tom.
Uncle Jack
Atticus's brother, a doctor Jem and Scout are very fond of.
Francis
One of Aunt Alexandra's grandchildren, who spends Christmas with the Finch family and annoys Scout by being both boring and cruel.
Maycomb's Social Hierarchy
Scout and Jem spend a great deal of time trying to understand what defines and creates social strata — a question central to the novel's moral landscape.
Major Themes
The enduring moral questions at the heart of Harper Lee's novel.
Good and Evil
To Kill a Mockingbird is an exploration of human morality, and presents a constant conversation regarding the inherent goodness or evilness of people. Atticus believes that people usually contain aspects of both good and evil, but that good will usually prevail. Atticus teaches this to his children, but also to the town, as he works to defend Tom Robinson, an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. In the racist town of Maycomb in the heart of America's South during the Depression era, this is a Herculean task.
Throughout the book, Scout and Jem make the classic transition from innocence to maturity. During Tom Robinson's trial, the children are sorely disappointed when the jury convicts the obviously innocent Tom Robinson simply because he is a black man and his accuser is white. The realization that there is true evil within their society shakes Jem to the core.
At the end of the novel, both children are faced with true evil, as Bob Ewell tries to kill them. True goodness, embodied in Boo Radley, saves them. In this final conflict between these opposing forces, goodness prevails.
Education
Shortly after the novel begins, Scout starts her first year at school. The educational system in Maycomb leaves much to be desired. Scout is ahead of her classmates because Atticus has taught her to read and write, and Calpurnia has even taught her script. However, once her teacher discovers this, she punishes Scout and tells her not to learn anything else at home, because her father does not know how to teach her properly. This is the first clear conflict between institutionalized education and education in the home.
Atticus clearly takes great pride in instilling a powerful sense of morality in his children. He truthfully answers whatever questions they ask, and encourages their inquisitive minds by treating them as adults. Scout notices the conflict most obviously when learning about the Holocaust — her teacher explains that such oppression could never happen in the United States, yet Scout heard Miss Gates outside the courthouse saying she thought it was "time somebody taught them a lesson," referring to black people. Clearly, Lee is expressing a lack of belief in the institutionalized educational system, and in fact suggests it might do more harm than good.
Social Inequality
"Folks are just folks"
Scout tends to believe that people are fundamentally equal, while Jem is convinced that social standing is related to how long people's relatives and ancestors have been able to write.
The White Hierarchy
The Finch family falls rather high up in the social hierarchy, while the Ewell family falls at the bottom. Scout and the other children have a very clear understanding of the social inequalities in their town, but see these inequalities as natural and permanent.
Race Below All
Maycomb's black population fall beneath all white families in Maycomb, including the Ewells, whom Atticus labels as "trash." Scout understands this social structure, but doesn't understand why it is so. She believes that everyone should be treated the same, no matter what family they are from.
The Mockingbird
When Scout and Jem receive airguns for Christmas, Atticus tells them that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Miss Maudie explains why — mockingbirds never do anyone any harm, and are not pests in any way. All they do is sing beautifully and live peacefully. The mockingbird comes to represent true goodness and purity.
Tom Robinson is one example of a human "mockingbird" — innocent, yet convicted and sentenced to death by a prejudiced town. Boo Radley is another — a prisoner of his own home, causing no harm to anyone, who ultimately saves Jem and Scout's lives. Scout understands that putting Boo on trial would be like killing a mockingbird.
Perspective
Throughout the novel, Atticus urges his children to try to step into other people's shoes to understand how they see the world. When Mrs. Dubose yells insults at Jem and Scout, Jem's punishment — reading to her daily — unknowingly helps her break her morphine addiction. Atticus reveals that Mrs. Dubose was fighting to regain sobriety even as she stood on the brink of death. At the end of the book, Scout escorts Boo Radley home and surveys the neighborhood from his perspective, imagining how he has witnessed all the happenings of the recent years. With this understanding, she is humbled.
Racism
Obviously, racism is a major theme of the novel. During the Depression era, blacks were still highly subjugated members of society. Blacks were not permitted to commingle with whites in public settings, as exemplified in the courthouse physical separation of races and in the clearly distinct black and white areas of town. Moreover, things like intermarriage were almost unheard of, and sorely looked down upon.
Tom Robinson is convicted purely because he is a black man and his accuser is white. The evidence is so powerfully in his favor, that race is clearly the single defining factor in the jury's decision. Atticus fights against racism, and a few other townspeople are on his side, including Miss Maudie and Judge Taylor. When Atticus loses the trial, he tries to make his children understand that although he lost, he did help move along the cause of ending racism — as evidenced by the jury's lengthy deliberation period. Usually, such a trial would be decided immediately.