CHAPTER+22


 * //__Chapter 22__//**

this could be the cake that the children have at Miss Maudie’s as she provides insight into the community In this chapter, Jem, Scout and Dill all come to terms with the recent verdict of the Tom Robinson Trial. The chapter starts out with Jem, Dill, Scout and Atticus all coming home from the trial and Jem in tears over the unjust jury. When the family wakes up, they find that the African American community has left their thanks in the form of any sort of food dish you could imagine on the Finches’ front porch. Later, the children have a visit with Miss Maudie who explains how much of the white society does care but “‘We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.’” (246) Jem responds to Maudie by using the comparison of his sister and him to a caterpillar to show how sheltered Jem and Scout have been from the true society of Maycomb. “’It’s like bein’ a caterpillar in a cocoon, that’s what it is. Like somethin’ asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that’s what they seemed like.’” (246) Maudie also explains that Atticus “won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we’re making a step- it’s just a baby-step, but it’s a step.” (246) This makes the children realize how much of a difference Atticus has made in the abolishment of the racial high arch in Maycomb. At the end of the section, we find out that Bob Ewell has threatened Atticus as he “spat in his face, and told him he’d get him if it took the rest of his life.” (247) I think that this chapter, though Scout tells it, is mainly taking insight into the perspective of Jem.


 * The page numbers that are used in this synopsis are from the large copy of //To Kill A Mockingbird. *//**

- Mary Sturgis