1. Gender in To Kill A Mockingbird
Does the novel reinforce or deconstruct traditional gender roles?
Theme: Traditional gender roles are just another set of harmful prejudices

2. Plot Summary
The Finch Family
Atticus, Scout
Jem, Calpurnia
Setting

3. Plotline 1: Boo Radley
Stories about Boo

4. Plotline 1: Boo Radley Items in the tree Saving Jem and Scout
Appearance and reality

5. Plotline 2: Tom Robinson
Who tom is, where he lives
What happens to Tom
The trial and the result
Prejudice

6. Plotline 3: The Kids Growing Up
The action follows Jem and Scout through a few years as they learn and grow
They have many different adult influences on them

7. Jem:
115 – Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went as far as to tell me what to do. After one altercation when Jem hollered, “It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!” I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia.”
How this reflects Scouts tom-boy childhood in general

8. Mrs. Dubose
101 – “Don’t you contradict me … and you!” she pointed an arthritic finger at me – “what are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady! You’ll grow up waiting on tables if someone doesn’t change your ways.”
How Scout is un-lady like, and the expectations of Maycomb around gender roles

9. Aunt Alexandra Why she comes to stay with them
237 – Aunt Alexandra looked across the room at me and smiled. She looked at a tray of cookies on the table and nodded at them. I carefully picked up the tray and watched myself walk to Mrs. Merriweather. With my best company manners, I asked her if she would have some.
How Scout eventually does mature and grow into a proper “lady” (at least a bit)

10. Theme: Traditional Gender Roles are just another set of harmful prejudices
What gender roles are
How scout is under “gender role” pressure
How Patriarchal societies have used gender roles to limit the freedom of women
Women couldn’t act in Shakespeare’s plays
Women couldn’t vote in most countries until well into the 20th century
Women were not allowed to have important careers until well into the 20th century
It was socially understood that it was “normal” for women to simply take care of the home, and occupy the “domestic” sphere

11. Maycomb Gender Roles v.s Scout
What can you do in overalls?
What can you do (or not do) in a skirt?

12. From Innocence to Prejudice
Context of quotation: Jem is saying he’s learned that there are 4 classes of people (hierarchy) – regular people, Cunninghams, Ewells, Blacks (high class, working class, trash, racially inferior)
Scout’s response:
227 – “everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin’. That Walter’s as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin’s wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”

13. From Innocence to Prejudice
The shows how prejudice can inhabit a population, and how people learn prejudice.
The tom robinson plotline shows learned racial prejudice – how different races should act in relation to each other
The boo Radley plotine shows prejudice as a result of ignorance
Scout’s development shows the prejudice of gender – how different genders should act in relation to each other

14. Theme: Traditional Gender Roles are just another set of harmful prejudices
What is the message of the book in terms of Gender Roles?
Does the book say (does Harper Lee say) that Scout should become a lady and do what is right?
No, it shows how she is pressured to do this, but in fact points out how arbitrary and unnecessary this should be

15. Theme: Traditional Gender Roles are just another set of harmful prejudices
Harper Lee expresses her arguments through her heroic characters
How does Atticus, the most logical and sensible character, feel about Scout being lady-like?
How does Mr. Link Deas react to Mr. Ewell harassing Helen Robinson?
What is special about the character of Dolphus Raymond?

16. Atticus
112 – “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
Atticus in the hero of the novel, and he expresses the ethical standard of thinking about what is right, and doing what is right.

17. Theme: Traditional Gender Roles are just another set of harmful prejudices
What is right?
Treating people equally is right. Whether it is black people and white people, or popular people and reclusive people, or female people and male people.
One of the themes in TKAM is that patriarchal gender roles are just another set of harmful prejudices.