Key Events/Ideas
- Aunt Alexandra arrives and orders Calpurnia around - "Put my bag in the front bedroom"
- Aunt Alexandra talks about "streaks"
- Atticus is pressured into talking to Jem and Scout about being a Finch by Aunt Alexandra – it is plain that he does not believe any of it and tells them to forget it afterwards
Key Quotations
- "Aunt Alexandra was sitting in a rocKing chair exactly as if she had sat there every day of her life" - fits into maycomb
- "we decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence"
- "the summer's going to be a hot one"
- Scout tells us that, according to Aunt Alexandra, 'Everybody in Maycomb, it seemed, had a Streak: a Drinking Streak, a Gambling Streak, a Mean Streak, a Funny Streak.' What is a 'streak'? How does Alexandra account for these 'streaks' and what does it reveal about her assumptions about human behaviour?
- Behaviour is inherited
- Family is everything – marrying well
- Trying to elevate the Finches – make them look pure, untainted - helps her cope with the fact that they have been hit hard by the depression
- Relates to her idea of "fine folks" - people who come from a line of a respectable family
- Do you think 'streaks' are a form of stereotyping? Why or why not? How might believing in 'streaks' affect the relationships between townspeople?
- If one person gambles – in her view the whole family have a gambling streak regardless of whether they gamble or not
- People from a lesser family will never be able to rise above it – they are tarnished by their blood
- Aunt Alexandra likes Maycomb the way it is – still feels superior to everyone else
- Doesn't want to admit to herself that the Finches are in decline
- Scout tells us, 'Aunt Alexandra fitted into the world of Maycomb like a hand into a glove, but never into the world of Jem and me.' Based on what you have learned so far, how is the world of Scout and Jem different from the 'world of Maycomb'? What factors make these worlds different?
- Scout – an outsider – separate from the world of Maycomb – sidelined because she is a tomboy
- Scout and Jem replicate events of Maycomb – Boo Radley – very dramatic – nothing really happens in Maycomb
- Naiive about racism and prejudice
- Scout thinks she can solve everything by fighting
- Away from all the social pressures because they are young – Aunt Alexandra is a symbol that they, particularly Scout, are growing up
- More fluid – in Maycomb everything is fixed
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