Chapter 4

Key Events/Ideas 

• Scout questions the education system 
• Scout still runs past the Radley place 
• Scout finds presents in the Radley tree 
• Scout is pushed in the tyre to the Radley house and hears someone laughing 

• The children make the play "Boo Radley" based on gossip and their imaginations which Scout finds slightly boring 
• Atticus finds the children playing with scissors and asks whether their game is to do with the Radley's  

Key Quotations 

• "I did not believe that 12 years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me" 
• "walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley place" 

• "Calpurnia says that’s nigger talk" 
• " Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them" 
• "someone inside the house was laughing" 
• "to contrast his own fearless heroism with my cowardice"  

What do the children find in the tree? Why do you think these objects were placed there? And by whom? 

• Boo Radley 
• To keep him interested 
• He has seen the children playing their game 
• Trapped inside the house by his father 

What is the point of the Boo Radley game? 

• To show that Jem was not scared of Boo when in fact he was 

Why is Scout keen to stop the games associated with the Radley home? 

• She finds it boring and becomes seperated from Jem and Dill who grow closer 
• She heard someone laughing in the house when she hit it with the tyre 
• Atticus told them not to  

Context 

• Scout is unintentionally racist- she does not mean it but everyone talks that way – even Calpurnia whom she is quoting 
• Jem is also very sexist in this chapter and repeatedly criticises Scout for behaving like a girl which reflects how women were seen as inferior at the time