Chapter 4 Analysis

Plot & Events Scout begins the chapter by summarizing her views on what Jem called the Dewey Decimal system of education delivered at Maycomb County School. P36 Scout and Jem find pennies in a box in the tree where Scout found the chewing gum – they suspect someone’s got a hiding place.p38 P42 – the kids are playing with a tyre and it rolls inside the Radley yard. P43 – Jem suggests they play a new game: Boo Radley P45 Scout hears laughter coming from inside the Radley house.

Themes /ideas Harper Lee is criticizing this education system: “Jem educated on a half-Decimal half-Dunce-cap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group, but Jem was a poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from getting at books.” p36 Scout observes that she: “inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system,” … and “could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something.” Harper Lee is very indignant that the ‘poor kids’ were not viewed as needing or capable of getting a ‘good education.’

Themes / Ideas When the kids are talking about ‘Hot Steam’ … ghosts: “somebody who can’t get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads …” p41, Scout says “Calpurnia says that’s nigger-talk” This links ghosts with ‘niggers’, the African Americans in Maycomb. P43 Jem says that Boo Radley “died years ago and they stuffed him up the chimney.” Scout says: “I was fairly sure Boo Radley was inside that house, but I couldn’t prove it, and felt it best to keep my mouth shut or I would be accused of believing in Hot Steams…” Rumours: These quotes and the fact that the kids act out roles in the Boo Radley game which was “a melancholy little drama, woven from bits and scraps of gossip and neighbourhood legend,” positions the reader to view Boo Radley as a ghostly and malevolent character.

Find evidence for the following… Setting – The Radley Place / Maycomb: P. 36-40 Characters - Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose, Miss Rachel, Miss Maudie Atkinson: p. 36-40 - Jem and Scout: p. 43-45

Setting Scout is still scared of the Radley place: “I ran by the Radley Place as fast as I could, not stopping until I reached the safety of our front porch.” p36 This associates fear with the Radley place One day, Scout finds some gum in a tree outside the Radley place. She ate it when she got home. Summer p38. “Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree-house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colours in a parched landscape.” P40 Dill – the Radley place. “We had strolled to the front yard, where Dill stood looking down the street at the dreary face of the Radley Place. ‘I-smell-death,’ he said. Here Lee is associating the mysterious, dreary, unknown Radley place with death. A very strong image.

Characters P 38 “…but most of all, summer was Dill.” This shows Scout and Jem’s affection for Dill, because summer was their best season. P39 “Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and…. Old Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose. …lived two doors up the street from us; neighbourhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived.” p39 Miss Rachel is Dill’s aunt. Miss Maudie Atkinson. P39-40

Characters P43 when Jem suggests they play ‘Boo Radley’, Scout observes that “Jem’s head at times was transparent: he had thought that up to make me understand he wasn’t afraid of Radley’s in any shape or form, to contrast his own fearless heroism with my cowardice.” This passage positions the reader to see Scout as a reflective sister who looks up to her brother and cares deeply about what he does and thinks. Their relationship is strong. P44 “Jem was a born hero.” P45 “…Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.” This positions the reader to view Scout as a tom boy – her brother doesn’t see her as a girl, but rather ‘one of the boys.’