TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD-SUMMARY

TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD

BY: HARPER LEE

Summarized by: Phoebe Keziah

“Lawyers, i suppose, were children once.”—Charles Lamb

This story is narrated by Jean Louise Finch, or nicknamed Scout, a little girl who lives in Maycomb, Alabama with her older brother, Jem and their widowed dad, Atticus. They also live with a black cook named Calpurnia. Atticus works as a laywer for a living, and they live in the main residential road.

 When Scout was nearly six and Jem almost ten, they befriended a boy named Charles Baker Harris, or Dill, who comes by every summer, and so the three played together every summer. Dill became interested in a spooky house that belongs to the Radleys. Inside the house lived a man named Arthur Radley, or Boo, and his brother Nathan.  Mr. Nathan always went outside, on the contrary, Boo had never gone outside in years. Now Scout, released from school thirty minutes before Jem, always ran by the Radleys.

One day she saw something shining from a hole in an oak tree, and it turned out to be a piece of gum. And the days passed there was always something in the hole. One night Jem and Dill decided to go to the Radleys, with Scout.  But they stood in horror when a shadow made its way towards them. When the shadow returned to the house, Jem ran towards Scout and a shot was heard. The shot stirred up a commotion and Jem lost his pants in the run. Later that night, Jem decided to go back to the Radleys and found his pants folded and stitched up.

The next winter, they kept finding gifts in the oak tree hole, until eventually Mr. Nathan Radley filled the hole up with cement. A while after, their neighbour’s house caught fire. While watching the fire, someone slipped a blanket onto Scout’s shoulders. Atticus said someday Scout would have to thank Boo Radley for the blanket.

Atticus, doing his job as a laywer, agrees to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, accused to raping and beating a white girl named Mayella Violet Ewell. She had bruises on her neck and her right part of her face that usually will tend to show that a left-handed man could easily do this. Scout, Jem and Dill were in the court all day long watching Atticus fight for Tom’s liberty. But hearing Tom’s side of the story, it was actually Mayella who wanted Tom to sleep with her. It turned out that Mayella’s father is ambidextrous, and Tom didn’t have a left arm because an incident when he was a boy. Atticus fought for Tom all day long, but it was up to the juries now. The juries had a long discussion but in the end the votes made Tom guilty. Tom was put in prison and later shot to death trying to escape.

It was Halloween and the school made an original pageant about what Maycomb county agricultural products were. Scout was supposed to be a Ham and when the teacher called Po-ork she would go out the stage. After the pageant, Jem and Scout walked home. When they reached the Radleys- it was clear because the ground beneath Scout’s feet felt cold that meant they were under the oak tree- Someone was following them! Jem shouted to Scout to run but the ham costume made it hard to move in the dark. Then she heard a crunching sound and Jem’s scream. Scout ran with all her might and sunk herself into a stomach. “Uff!” said its owner while he tried to catch her hands, but the Ham costume saved her. Scout managed to run away from him. And there was another man that carried Jem, arm broken and now unconscious to Atticus’ house.

When Atticus called the doctor and let him examined Jem, the Sherriff arrived. “Jem’s arm will heal quickly” said the doctor. Scout, then, told them about the incidents that occurred that night.

Atticus asked who’d brought Jem to the house, and Scout looked at the man who was leaning against the wall. “Hey, Boo.” she said. It was Arthur Radley that saved Jem.

 The Sherriff took a look at the man whom they left at the Radleys. It was Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father, lying on the ground with a knife stuck between his ribs, drunk and dead, because he fell on his own knife. Boo asked Scout to take him home so Scout escorted Boo home. Then she crawled up at Atticus’ lap and fell asleep.

My opinion about this book:

This story happened when white people discriminated black people, so the juries let their views be biased by the prejudice. So this book is called “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD” because it means “to kill something/one innocent”.