CHAPTER+30

Chapter 30 This chapter starts out very emotionally for Scout because she has just realized that Boo has saved her. At the bottom of page 271, Atticus says” Heck, let’s go out on the front porch. …I wondered why Atticus was inviting us to the porch instead of the living room, then I understood. The living room lights were awfully strong.” Just after they get to the porch, Mr. Finch and Mr. Tate get into an argument about who killed Mr. Ewell. Atticus says that Jem did it, but Mr. Tate insists that Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. “Know what’d happen then? All the ladies in Maycomb includin’ my wife’d be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin’, Mr. Finch taking the one man who’s done you and this town a great service an’ draggin’ him a with his shy ways into the limelight-to me that’s a sin.”(276) We see here that Boo has killed Mr. Ewell, and that Mr. Tate thinks that it was a good thing. It is interesting that he and all the ladies in Maycomb would think that because they just convicted Tom Robinson for Mr. Ewell, even though they knew he was innocent. Scout says “well it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird wouldn’t it?” I think she means that Boo is a mocking bird and that he has done nothing that the town will perceive as wrong, and that he has even helped it some by killing Mr. Ewell. This chapter is told by Scout, but she does not (as we have seen her do in the past) step away from the present in the story, and go to a time much later. The tone was a little tense because Mr. Tate and Atticus were arguing, but mostly it was kind of the calm that comes after a big event, sort of tired and a little excited. I guess my picture isn't loading for some reason?