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About This Passage
Lee's portrait of Judge Taylor uses the appearance of casual inattention to disclose a real, exact authority underneath. The dozing is part of the disguise; the grip on the proceedings is the substance. By giving Judge Taylor this comic anecdote of a thwarted lawyer just before the trial begins, Lee earns the reader's trust that the trial's irregularities will not be procedural but moral — that whatever goes wrong will not go wrong because the bench was inattentive.
In long equity hearings, especially after dinner, he gave the impression of dozing, an impression dispelled forever when a lawyer once deliberately pushed a pile of books to the floor in a desperate e...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell chapter 16 as the long approach to the courthouse. Begin with Atticus's breakfast remarks about Mr. Cunningham, move through Aunt Alexandra's argument about Calpurnia, and end with the children's arrival in the balcony with Reverend Sykes. What is each of these stages preparing the reader to see when the trial begins?
Discussion Questions
- Atticus's breakfast distinction between Mr. Cunningham 'part of a mob last night' and Mr. Cunningham 'still a man' presents a working theory of crowd behavior in Maycomb. Examine how this theory predicts the chapter 15 dispersal at the jail and consider where it will fail to predict the verdict the jurors will return in chapter 21.
- The faint starchiness Scout begins to hear in Atticus's voice when he speaks with Aunt Alexandra is the chapter's most carefully marked tonal change. Analyze what Lee accomplishes by registering Atticus's growing resistance through prosody rather than through declared rebuke, and consider what this restraint discloses about Atticus's idea of how kin ought to disagree.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
A branch of law concerned with fairness and remedies that the strict letter of statute cannot supply.
Item 2
Falling into a light, brief sleep, often without meaning to.
Item 3
Driven away or made to disappear, as a doubt or a wrong impression is by clear evidence.
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Critical Thinking
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