To Kill a Mockingbird — Chapter 20

About This Passage

This passage is the precise hinge of Atticus's closing argument: he reconstructs the November 21 evening from physical evidence alone and quietly converts Mr. Bob Ewell's sworn warrant into circumstantial evidence against himself. Following Quintilian's imitatio, the sentences reward attention to Atticus's stacked appositives ('God-fearing, persevering, respectable white man'), his ironic em-dashed parentheticals, and the chiastic closing — left hand for the warrant, right hand for the oath.

Narration Prompt

In a paragraph, retell the architecture of this chapter: Mr. Dolphus Raymond's revelation under the live oak, Scout and Dill's return to the courtroom, the structure of Atticus's closing argument from opening propositions through Jefferson and the courts, and Calpurnia's appearance in the middle aisle.

Discussion Questions

1. Atticus tells the jury that 'all men are created equal' is most often misused, and yet 'in our courts all men are created equal' is a 'living, working reality.' How does Atticus rescue Jefferson's phrase from sentimental abstraction by relocating it from politics to the jury box?
2. Trace the rhetorical architecture of Atticus's closing argument from his three opening propositions ('absence of corroborative evidence,' 'witnesses contradicted,' 'somebody in this courtroom is') through the unbuttoning of his vest to his final whispered 'In the name of God, believe him.' How does the speech's structure mirror its theology?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide