To Kill a Mockingbird — Chapter 1

Narration Prompt

Retell chapter one as a reader encountering the novel for the first time, paying attention to how Harper Lee uses the braided introduction — Jem's arm, the Finch genealogy, the portrait of Maycomb, the arrival of Dill, and the Boo Radley catechism — to install the moral architecture the remaining thirty chapters will test.

Discussion Questions

1. Scout presents the whole novel as a dispute about when Jem's arm was broken, and Atticus refuses to adjudicate between the Ewells, Dill's summer, and Andrew Jackson — what is Harper Lee arguing about causation and moral responsibility by refusing, in her opening paragraphs, to locate a single beginning?
2. The Finch genealogy traces Simon Finch from Cornwall to the Alabama River, notes that his 'piety was exceeded only by his stinginess,' and admits that he 'bought three slaves' in forgetfulness of his teacher's dictum against human chattels — how should the reader weigh this unvarnished genealogy against Atticus's later moral stature in the novel?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide