To Kill a Mockingbird — Chapter 15

Narration Prompt

Read chapter 15 as two confrontations laid in sequence — the Maycomb men in the Finch yard, and the Old Sarum men at the jail door — and a third, quieter scene that follows: Atticus walking home with Jem, Scout, and Dill. What does each scene ask Atticus to defend, and how does Lee distinguish the kinds of pressure each one applies?

Discussion Questions

1. Atticus's response to the Old Sarum men is staged almost entirely in objects — an extension cord run through the jail bars, a bare bulb, an office chair, a book — rather than in words. Examine the moral grammar of this staging: what is Atticus claiming about lawful authority by importing the materials of his ordinary professional life to the front of the jail, and how does that claim differ from the kind of authority a Heck Tate or an armed deputy would have asserted in the same place?
2. Mr. Underwood, whom Lee has Scout describe as a man who 'had no use for any organization but The Maycomb Tribune,' is the one neighbor watching over Atticus that night, with a double-barreled shotgun. Examine what Lee accomplishes by making the most isolated man in Maycomb its most reliable conscience, and consider how this characterization is confirmed and complicated by Underwood's later editorial after Tom Robinson's death.

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide