Date:------------------------------ Name:-----------------------------------
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Ch.26-27
Summary and Analysis
Summary ( Chapter 26 )
School starts. Scout seldom sees Jem, since he’s in 7th grade and stays out late
carrying water for the football team. Scout often walks alone past Radley Place and
feels horrible for tormenting Boo Radley. She remembers the gifts left in the oak tree
and reasons that almost seeing him a couple times is good enough. She fantasizes
about seeing him on the porch and greeting him politely, but Atticus warns her to not
think about it and lets on that he knows about their midnight jaunt through the Radley
yard. Boo is the least of Scout’s worries, however, since classmates still taunt Scout
and Jem about Atticus’s role in Tom’s case. Scout decides that people are strange,
since they still reelect Atticus to the state legislature, so she mostly ignores them.
Analysis
Feeling horrible for the way she treated Boo, and indeed recognizing that she, Jem, and
Dill tormented him is another leap in Scout’s maturity. Now, she’s able to look back on
her childish antics and see that she was actually prejudiced against someone who
simply chooses to live differently, and that she made his life even more difficult because
of that. When Maycomb still elects Atticus to the legislature, it creates the sense that not
much is going to change in Maycomb, for better or worse.
One week during Scout’s current events period, Cecil Jacobs brings in an article about
how Hitler is persecuting Jewish and disabled people in Germany. Miss Gates gives
the class a quick lesson on democracy and insists that Germany is a dictatorship, unlike
the U.S. Because the U.S. is a democracy, nobody is persecuted because nobody is
prejudiced. Scout has questions but doesn’t feel comfortable asking Atticus. She seeks
out Jem and notes that Miss Gates hates Hitler, but she also heard Miss Gates after the
trial saying that the black folks in Maycomb are getting above themselves. She wants to
know how Miss Gates can be so hypocritical. Furious, Jem tells Scout to not talk about
the trial. Scout finds Atticus. He encourages her to be understanding of Jem, as he’s
trying to process something right now.
Analysis
Scout recognizes that Miss Gates is extremely hypocritical and racist here. Miss Gates
can see how awful it is that Hitler is persecuting Jewish people yet can’t understand that
in the U.S., black people also live in fear of the white people in charge—
who are prejudiced, no matter what she says. Again, the fact that Scout can pick this
out when Miss Gates cannot speaks to the novel’s insistence that children have the
ability to recognize these discrepancies, as they don’t yet have to fit into polite society
and assume the questionable views required to fit in.
Summary ( Chapter 27 )
Just as Atticus promised, things settle down in October. Three things happen, however:
first, Mr. Ewell gets a job with the WPA, but they fire him within days. Second, while Judge
Taylor is home one Sunday night while his wife is at church, he hears an odd scratching noise.
He sees a shadow disappearing and his screen door cut open. Third, Mr. Deas makes a job
for Helen Robinson in his store. However, when Helen uses the main road to reach her job, Mr.
Ewell taunts her. When Mr. Deas finds out, he threatens Mr. Ewell, but the next morning, Mr.
Ewell tails Helen to work and whispers foully at her. One more stern conversation with Mr. Deas
makes Mr. Ewell stop.
Analysis
Mr. Ewell’s behavior shows that Maycomb isn’t the safe place Scout once thought it was, as Mr.
Ewell is clearly out for revenge. His willingness to harass Helen Robinson in particular shows
that Mr. Ewell is willing to pick on vulnerable individuals in order to make himself feel powerful
and in charge. Mr. Deas’s defense of Helen, meanwhile, reminds Scout again that there are still
people in Maycomb willing to do the hard thing and stand up for what’s right.
Summary
This makes Aunt Alexandra nervous, and she doesn’t understand why Mr. Ewell is behaving
this way when he won in court. Atticus points out that nobody really believed him or Mayella,
and nobody thinks he’s a hero like he wanted. He says that Judge Taylor made him look like a
fool and treated him contemptuously.
Analysis
Atticus’s admission that nobody believed Mr. Ewell and Mayella reminds the reader that Tom
was convicted simply because of racism and nothing else—and in Maycomb, acting as Judge
Taylor did puts Taylor at risk, given the intensity of people’s prejudice.
Summary
Things return to normal at school. Maycomb seems back to itself, though people remove pro-
National Recovery Act stickers and, following last year’s Halloween prank on two sisters in
which local children hid all their furniture in their cellar (the only one in town), Maycomb
decides to put on a carnival. Mrs. Merriweather composes a pageant about Maycomb County’s
agricultural products and casts Scout to play the part of a ham. The local seamstress makes Scout
a costume out of chicken wire, which looks great but isn’t something Scout can take on and off
herself. She assumes that everyone will come, but Aunt Alexandra and Atticus refuse. Scout
shows off her costume and Jem takes her to school.
Analysis
While relatively benign in the grand scheme of the novel, notice that the children play this prank
on the sisters simply because they don’t fit the mold and have a cellar when nobody else does. In
this sense, the children are still targeting those who are different and creating pressure for them
to conform, even if in this case, it’s more humorous and lighthearted. Regardless, at its core this
is the same kind of thinking that led the jury to convict Tom Robinson.
Questions Chapter 26
1. What grade is Jem in in this chapter?
2. What grade is Scout in in this chapter?
3. How does Scout feel about the Radley Place now?
4. What newspaper does Miss Gates dislike?
5. What term does Miss Gates say means equal rights for everyone?
6. When does Scout see Atticus scowl?
7. Why is Jem trying to gain weight? How?
8. How does Scout define democracy?
9. What had Scout heard Miss Gates say on the courthouse steps?
10. Why does Atticus say that Jem would not talk about the courthouse?
Questions Chapter 27
1. What does Mrs. Jones say Mr. Ewell said when he lost his job?
2. When does Judge Taylor hear a strange noise?
3. Why does Helen walk a mile out of her way to get to work?
4. Who defends Helen against Mr. Ewell?
5. What noise did Judge Taylor hear?
6. During what month does this chapter take place?
7. What is Scout’s costume for the pageant?
8. What are the nicknames for the Barber sisters?
9. What trick is played on the Barber sisters?
10. Who escorts Scout to the pageant?
Answers Chapter 26
1. Jem is in the seventh grade in this chapter.
2. Scout is in the third grade in this chapter.
3. Scout still thinks the Radley Place is gloomy, but she is not terrified of it.
4. Miss Gates dislikes The Grit Paper.
5. Miss Gates says democracy means equal rights for everyone.
6. Scout sees Atticus scowl when Hitler is mentioned on the radio.
7. Jem is trying to gain weight by eating bananas and milk. He needs to gain
25 pounds in two years to play football.
8. Democracy is defined as “Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.”
9. Scout had heard Miss Gates say derogatory things about black people on
the courthouse steps. She said things about teaching “'em a lesson, and how
they were getting way above themselves, and the next thing they will think
they can marry us.'”
10. Atticus says that Jem is trying to forget, but that actually he is storing the
information until he can sort things out.
Answers Chapter 27
1. Mr. Ewell says that Atticus got his job.
2. Judge Taylor hears a strange sound on Sunday night.
3. Helen walks a mile out of her way to avoid the Ewell Place.
4. Mr. Link Deas tells Mr. Ewell to leave Helen alone.
5. Someone cut Judge Taylor’s screen causing the noise.
6. This chapter takes place in October.
7. Scout is a ham for the pageant.
8. The children call the Barbers Tutti and Frutti.
9. The furniture from downstairs was put in the cellar while they
slept.
10. Jem escorts Scout to the pageant.
