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Copywork
About This Passage
This is Scout the grown narrator looking back at Atticus during the long argument with Aunt Alexandra over Calpurnia. The sentence shows Lee letting the adult Scout name a fact about Atticus that the child Scout could only feel — that Atticus disagrees with his sister steadily, not loudly, and that adult restraint is its own kind of conviction.
I was beginning to notice a subtle change in my father these days, that came out when he talked with Aunt Alexandra. It was a quiet digging in, never outright irritation.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell the morning after the night at the jail. What does Atticus say to Jem and Scout about Mr. Cunningham at breakfast, what does Aunt Alexandra say about Calpurnia, and how do the children spend the rest of the day in Maycomb?
Discussion Questions
- Atticus tells Jem at breakfast that Mr. Cunningham is 'basically a good man' who 'just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.' What is Atticus teaching Jem about how to think about the men who came to the jail in Maycomb?
- Aunt Alexandra and Atticus argue at the table about whether the way Mr. Underwood feels about Black people should be spoken about in front of Calpurnia. What does this disagreement show about how Aunt Alexandra and Atticus each see Calpurnia's place in the family?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
So small or so quiet that you might miss it if you were not paying close attention.
Item 2
When something becomes different from how it was before.
Item 3
To see or feel that something is happening, often something other people miss.
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Critical Thinking
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