Maycomb, Alabama

The Environment

“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. 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. 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 teacakes with frosting of sweat and sweet talcum.

People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. 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 County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb Country had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself” (Lee 6).

“There are no clearly defined seasons in South Alabama; summer drifts into autumn, and autumn is sometimes never followed by winter, but turns to a days-old spring that melts into summer again” (Lee 79) If you want to read a delightful story of Jem and Scout’s muddy snowman read chapter 8.

 

Who lives here?

Character Breakdowns

Scout gives us detailed observations about countless characters in Maycomb. We see them through her eyes and only through her do we see their relationships to each other. I would argue that this is one of the book’s strengths. We can speculate about the accuracy of Jean’s memory but there is something about the honesty of a child that is unedited, unfiltered, and sometimes far more valuable than the tactful statements of adults.

 

Atticus Finch: “Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets” (Lee 61) “Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty… he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness… our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office… he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone. Besides that he wore glasses… He did not do the things our schoolmate’s fathers did… He sat in the livingroom and read” (Lee 118) “did you know he’s the best checker player in town?” (Lee 120) “With his infinite capacity for calming turbulent seas, he could make a rape case as dry as a sermon” (Lee 226)

Calpurnia: “She was all angels and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was a wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jen when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn’t; ready to come. Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won… She had been with us ever since Jem was born, and I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember” (Lee 7) “Calpurnia had more education than most colored folks” (Lee 32)

Jem Finch: “In all his life, Jem had never declined a dare” (Lee 16) “no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from getting at books” (Lee 43) “he was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me o many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus” (Lee 153)

Scout Finch: “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing” (Lee 23) “You’re more like Atticus than your mother” (Lee 105)

Mrs. Dubose: “plain hell” (Lee 7) “Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived” (Lee 46) “She was very old; she spent most of each day in bed and the rest of it in a wheelchair. It was rumored that she kept a CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps” (Lee 132) “She was a lady… she had her own views about things, a lot different from mine… I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. Its when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew”( Lee 149) https://talbottcampus.com/morphine-addiction-in-the-1930s/

Charles Baker Harris (Dill): “his mother… had entered his picture in a Beautiful Child contest and won five dollars. She gave the money to Dill, who went to the picture show twenty times on it. Dill was a curiosity… his laugh was sudden and happy; he habitually pulled a ta cowlick in the center of his forehead” (Lee 9) “Dill Harris could tell the biggest ones I ever heard” (Lee 63) “A pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies” (Lee 10)

Arthur “Boo” Radley: “a malevolent phantom” (Lee 10) “What Mr. Radley did may seem peculiar to us, but it did not seem peculiar to him” (Lee 65)

Mr. Nathan Radley: “he was a thin leathery man with colorless eyes, so colorless they did not reflect light. His cheekbones were sharp and his mouth was wide, with a thin upper lip and a full lower lip.. he was so upright he took the word of God as his only law” (Lee 14)

Mr. Cunningham: “The Cunninghams never took anything they can’t pay back- no church baskets and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along with what they have” (Lee 26) “he was willing to go hungry to keep his land and vote as he pleased… Mr. Cunningham… came from a set breed of men” (Lee 28)

Robert E. Lee “Bob” Ewell: “the Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations. None of them had done an honest day’s work in his recollections… They were people but they lived like animals… when a man spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying from hunger pains” (Lee 40) “A little bantam cock of a man… we saw that his face was as red as his neck. We also saw no resemblance to his namesake. A shock of wispy new-washed hair stood up from his forehead; his nose was thin, pointed, and shiny; he had no chin to speak of- it seemed to be part of his crepey neck” (Lee 227)

Mayella Violet Ewell: “She seemed somehow fragile looking, but when she sat facing us in the witness chair she became what she was, a thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor… Mayella looked as if she tried to keep clean and I was reminded of the row of red geraniums in the Ewell yard” (Lee 239) “like a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tail” (Lee 242) “Mayella Ewell must have be the loneliest person in the world” (Lee 256)

Miss Maudie: “Miss Maudie hated her house: time spent indoors was time wasted. She was a widow, a chameleon ladies who worked in her flower beds in an old straw hat and men’s coveralls, but after her five o’clock bath she would appear on the porch and reign over the stress in magisterial beauty” (Lee 56)

Mr. Heck Tate: “the sheriff of Maycomb County. He was as tall as Atticus, but thinner. He was long-nosed and wore boots with shiny metal eye-holes, boot pants and a lumbar jacket. His belt had a row of bullets sticking in it. He carried a heavy rifle” (Lee 125)

Lula: “Her weight was on one leg; she rested her left elbow in the curve of her hip… she was bullet-headed with strange almond-shaped eyes, straight nose, and an Indian-bow mouth. She seemed seven feet high… She’s a troublemaker from way back, got fancy ideas an’ haughty ways” (Lee 158)

Reverend Sykes: “a short, stocky man in a black suit, black tie, white shirt, and a gold watch-chain that glinted in the light from the frosted windows” (Lee 160)

Miss Stephanie Crawford: “Aunty assured us that Miss Stephanie Crawford’s tendency to mind other people’s business was hereditary” (Lee  173)

Judge Taylor: “looked like most judges I had ever seen: amiable, white-haired, slightly ruddy-faced, he was a man who ran his court with an alarming informality- he sometimes propped his feet up, he often cleaned his fingernails with his pocket knife” (Lee 220)

Mr. Gilmer: “A balding, smooth-faced man, he could have been anywhere between forty and sixty” (Lee 222)

Tom Robinson: “Tom was twenty-five years of age; he was married with three children” (Lee 254) “Tom Robinson’s manners were as good as Atticus’s” (Lee 260)

Helen Robinson: “Tom Robinson’s widow” (Lee 333) Her story of being threatened by Bob Ewell is found in chapter 27

The Finch Family

The great ancestor of the Finches was Simon Finch who came to Maycomb right at the beginning of the town history. The Finches have a good reputation in the town but they have a complex history of incestual marriages and a tight family tree. Atticus, Alexandra, and Jack are siblings. Francis is Alexandra’s son who bores Scout to death. More insight into the family tree is found in chapter 9. Uncle Jack and Atticus have an interesting conversation about the case and the children

“You know what’s going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb’s usual disease” (Lee 117).

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Townspeople Not Named in the Play

Mr. Conner pg 12

Miss Caroline Fisher pg 21

Mrs. Cat pg 21

Walter Cunningham pg 25

Miss Blount pg 29

Little Chuck Little pg 34

Burris Ewell pg 35

Cecil Jacobs pg 46 ch. 9

Ms. Rachel pg 47

Mrs. Radley pg 51

Dr. Frank Buford pg 58

Mr. Avery pg 67

Cousin Ike Finch pg 101

Mr. Harry Johnson pg 122

Miss Eula May pg 123

Zeebo pg 128 pg 166

Windy Seaton pg 147

Mrs. Buford pg 165

Cousin Lily Brooke pg 176

Cousin Joshua pg 176

Mr. Link Deas pg 194

Mr. Sam Levy pg 196

Mr. Braxton Underwood pg 197

Mr. Dolphus Raymond pg 211

Mr. X Billups pg 212

Mr. Tensaw Jones pg 212

Miss Emily Davis pg 212

Mr. Bryon Waller pg 212

Mr. Jake Slade pg 212

Jeems Cunningham pg 220

Mrs. Taylor pg 221

Estelle pg 286

Maxwell Green pg 289

Mrs. Grace Merriweather pg 308

Mrs. Farrow pg 310
Brother Hudson pg 311

Mrs. Gates pg 312

Mrs. Perkins pg 312

Ruth Jones pg 333

Misses Tutti and Frutti Barber pg 336

Dr. Reynolds pg 355