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In the square, the two talk with Dolphus Raymond who has a black girlfriend and children of mixed-race, something looked down upon by many in Maycomb. He offers Dill coca cola, which Scout thinks is alcohol. Surprised, she asks Raymond why he lets people think he's a drunkard, and he answers that the people would leave him and his family alone if they think he's a drunkard. The children
return to the courtroom and Dill gets Scout and Jem's attention as he points at Calpurnia as she walks towards Atticus. The conversation between Dill, Scout and Dolphus Raymond giver the reader and the characters a little break from the tension of the trial and provides another aspect of the complex Maycomb society. Raymond has a black girlfriend mixed-race children. He is standing up for what he believes ids right, just like Atticus. However, he compromises his courage by
hiding behind drunkenness to make his life easier. Atticus is quiet about his beliefs until he is challenged, when he reveals what he believes and stands behind it. When people suggest that he shouldn’t have taken the case since he has much to lose, he insists that he believes in equality. Unlike Dolphus, Atticus leaves no doubt where he stands.
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Dolphous Raymond calls over Scout and Dill. He says that he has something that will help Dill's stomach. He gives Dill a sip of the drink in his paper bag, which the town has always believed to be alcohol. It turns out to be Coca-Cola, which surprises the children. Dolphous explains that he leads the town to believe that he is a drunk so that they have a reason to dislike him. After Dill's stomach improves the children head back into the court for final arguments. When Atticus finishes his closing arguments, Cal enters the courtroom.
Summary: Chapter 20
Mr. Dolphus Raymond reveals that he is drinking from a paper sack. He commiserates with Dill and offers him a drink in a paper bag. Dill slurps up some of the liquid and Scout warns him not to take much, but Dill reveals to her that the drink isn’t alcoholic—it’s only Coca-Cola. Mr. Raymond tells the children that he pretends to be a drunk to provide the other white people with an explanation for his lifestyle, when, in fact, he simply prefers black people to whites.
When Dill and Scout return to the courtroom, Atticus is making his closing remarks. He has finished going over the evidence and now makes a personal appeal to the jury. He points out that the prosecution has produced no medical evidence of the crime and has presented only the shaky testimony of two unreliable witnesses; moreover, the physical evidence suggests that Bob Ewell, not Tom Robinson, beat Mayella. He then offers his own version of events, describing how Mayella, lonely and unhappy, committed the unmentionable act of lusting after a black man and then concealed her shame by accusing him of rape after being caught. Atticus begs the jury to avoid the state’s assumption that all black people are criminals and to deliver justice by freeing Tom Robinson. As soon as Atticus finishes, Calpurnia comes into the courtroom.
Summary: Chapter 21
Calpurnia hands Atticus a note telling him that his children have not been home since noon. Mr. Underwood says that Jem and Scout are in the colored balcony and have been there since just after one in the afternoon. Atticus tells them to go home and have supper. They beg to be allowed to hear the verdict; Atticus says that they can return after supper, though he knows that the jury will likely have returned before then.
Calpurnia marches Jem, Scout, and Dill home. They eat quickly and return to find the jury still out, the courtroom still full. Evening comes, night falls, and the jury continues to deliberate. Jem is confident of victory, while Dill has fallen asleep. Finally, after eleven that night, the jury enters. Scout remembers that a jury never looks at a man it has convicted, and she notices that the twelve men do not look at Tom Robinson as they file in and deliver a guilty verdict. The courtroom begins to empty, and as Atticus goes out, everyone in the colored balcony rises in a gesture of respect.
Summary: Chapter 22
That night, Jem cries, railing against the injustice of the verdict. The next day, Maycomb’s black population delivers an avalanche of food to the Finch household. Outside, Miss Stephanie Crawford is gossiping with Mr. Avery and Miss Maudie, and she tries to question Jem and Scout about the trial. Miss Maudie rescues the children by inviting them in for some cake. Jem complains that his illusions about Maycomb have been shattered: he thought that these people were the best in the world, but, having seen the trial, he doesn’t think so anymore. Miss Maudie points out that there were people who tried to help, like Judge Taylor, who appointed Atticus to the case instead of the regular public defender. She adds that the jury’s staying out so long constitutes a sign of progress in race relations. As the children leave Miss Maudie’s house, Miss Stephanie runs over to tell them that Bob Ewell accosted their father that morning, spat on him, and swore revenge.
Analysis: Chapters 20–22
It is easy to criticize Mr. Dolphus Raymond as an unreal, saccharinely nonracist character. Indeed, in a temporal and geographical setting in which the white community as a whole has so little sympathy for blacks, Raymond is not only anomalous but also somewhat preposterous—it seems that even the righteous and morally upstanding Atticus might view Raymond as having breached accepted notions of social propriety. The importance of Raymond’s character, however, lies in the nature of his preference for blacks. Raymond never explains precisely why he prefers blacks—he just does; similarly, the white community never explains why it hates blacks—it just does. The difference between these two ingrained attitudes, however, is that whereas the white community imposes its preferences unapologetically on the whole of Maycomb, Raymond acts on his preferences solely because he wants to live that way, not because he wants to dictate how others should live.
Mr. Raymond’s presence outside the courtroom is fitting: like Miss Maudie, he does not belong inside with the rest of the white people, because he does not share their guilt. Mr. Raymond is a harsh realist, and while he shares Jem’s outrage, he is too old to cry. In a way, Mr. Raymond is another illustration of an innocent destroyed by hatred and prejudice: a moral and conscientious man, he is also an unhappy figure, a good man who has turned cynical and lost hope after witnessing too much evil in the world. “You haven’t seen enough of the world yet,” he tells Scout, commenting on how special and good her father is, and her innocent belief in human goodness. “You haven’t even seen this town, but all you gotta do is step back inside the courthouse.”
Whereas Mr. Raymond believes that Maycomb’s racist side is the real Maycomb, Atticus, less embittered, seems to hold out hope for the town—significantly, his eloquent closing argument is devoid of despair. Rather, he speaks to the jury with confidence and dignity, urging them to find confidence and dignity within themselves. Though To Kill a Mockingbird dramatizes the threat posed to goodness by evil, and though it frequently treats this theme by exploring the destruction of innocence, the novel’s ultimate moral outlook is not bleak; rather, it is characterized by Atticus’s wise understanding of both the goodness and the badness within people. Moral issues within the novel are often black and white, with a clear good side and a clear evil side, but the novel’s conclusion about humanity is not so simple. On the contrary, Atticus understands that people are capable of great goodness and great evil, which proves the key to his own admirable moral strength. Unlike the children’s outlook, Atticus’s understanding of the world is not innocent: he does not believe in goodness simply because he has never seen evil. He has indeed seen and experienced evil, but he is nevertheless capable of faith in the good qualities of humankind. This faith represents the adult perspective toward which Scout, who begins the novel as an innocent child, is forced to move as the story progresses. Although the jury strikes a blow for prejudice by convicting Tom, it is still possible for the town’s morally unblemished adult characters to hold out hope. Even after the verdict has been handed down, there is a sense that progress has been made: as Miss Maudie puts it, the town has taken “a step—it’s just a baby-step, but it’s a step.”
Jem, however, is not able to see things this way. Scout is bewildered by the verdict, but, like Atticus, she is resilient and retains her positive view of the world. Her brother is crushed: his dearly held illusions about justice and the law have been shattered. In a way, Jem, like Tom Robinson, is a mockingbird. While the Ewells and the forces of hatred and prejudice do not take his life, they do strip him of his childhood and youthful idealism.
Summary: Chapter 23
Bob Ewell’s threats are worrisome to everyone except Atticus. Atticus tells Jem and Scout that because he made Ewell look like a fool, Ewell needed to get revenge. Now that Ewell has gotten that vengefulness out of his system, Atticus expects no more trouble. Aunt Alexandra and the children remain worried. Meanwhile, Tom Robinson has been sent to another prison seventy miles away while his appeal winds through the court system. Atticus feels that his client has a good chance of being pardoned. When Scout asks what will happen if Tom loses, Atticus replies that Tom will go to the electric chair, as rape is a capital offense in Alabama.
Jem and Atticus discuss the justice of executing men for rape. The subject then turns to jury trials and to how all twelve men could have convicted Tom. Atticus tells Jem that in an Alabama court of law, a white man’s word always beats a black man’s, and that they were lucky to have the jury out so long. In fact, one man on the jury wanted to acquit—amazingly, it was one of the Cunninghams. Upon hearing this revelation, Scout announces that she wants to invite young Walter Cunningham to dinner, but Aunt Alexandra expressly forbids it, telling her that the Finches do not associate with trash.
Scout grows furious, and Jem hastily takes her out of the room. In his bedroom, Jem reveals his minimal growth of chest hair and tells Scout that he is going to try out for the football team in the fall. They discuss the class system—why their aunt despises the Cunninghams, why the Cunninghams look down on the Ewells, who hate black people, and other such matters. After being unable to figure out why people go out of their way to despise each other, Jem suggests Boo Radley does not come out of his house because he does not want to leave it.
Summary: Chapter 24
One day in August, Aunt Alexandra invites her missionary circle to tea. Scout, wearing a dress, helps Calpurnia bring in the tea, and Alexandra invites Scout to stay with the ladies. Scout listens to the missionary circle first discuss the plight of the poor Mrunas, a benighted African tribe being converted to Christianity, and then talk about how their own black servants have behaved badly ever since Tom Robinson’s trial. Miss Maudie shuts up their prattle with icy remarks. Suddenly, Atticus appears and calls Alexandra to the kitchen. There he tells her, Scout, Calpurnia, and Miss Maudie that Tom Robinson attempted to escape and was shot seventeen times. He takes Calpurnia with him to tell the Robinson family of Tom’s death. Alexandra asks Miss Maudie how the town can allow Atticus to wreck himself in pursuit of justice. Maudie replies that the town trusts him to do right. They return with Scout to the missionary circle, managing to act as if nothing is wrong.
Summary: Chapter 25
September has begun and Jem and Scout are on the back porch when Scout notices a roly-poly bug. She is about to mash it with her hand when Jem tells her not to. She dutifully places the bug outside. When she asks Jem why she shouldn’t have mashed it, he replies that the bug didn’t do anything to harm her. Scout observes that it is Jem, not she, who is becoming more and more like a girl. Her thoughts turn to Dill, and she remembers him telling her that he and Jem ran into Atticus as they started home from swimming during the last two days of August. Jem had convinced Atticus to let them accompany him to Helen Robinson’s house, where they saw her collapse even before Atticus could say that her husband, Tom, was dead. Meanwhile, the news occupies Maycomb’s attention for about two days, and everyone agrees that it is typical for a black man to do something irrational like try to escape. Mr. Underwood writes a long editorial condemning Tom’s death as the murder of an innocent man. The only other significant reaction comes when Bob Ewell is overheard saying that Tom’s death makes “one down and about two more to go.” Summer ends and Dill leaves.
Analysis: Chapters 23–25
When he reassures his family that Bob Ewell does not really intend to harm him, Atticus advises Jem to stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes, echoing the advice that he gives Scout earlier in the novel and evoking one of the most important moral themes in the book. Here, however, Atticus’s attempt to understand another human falls short: he makes an honest mistake in his analysis by failing to understand the depth of Ewell’s anger toward him. Aunt Alexandra is more insightful, maintaining that a man like Ewell will do anything to get revenge. Although her comments seem typical of her tendency to stereotype “those people” who are different from the Finches, her analysis of Ewell proves correct. For all her faults, Aunt Alexandra gains, by way of her stereotypes, a basically reliable understanding of the people of Maycomb.
Both Jem and Scout are forced to face the adult world in these chapters to an unprecedented degree. In fact, Jem is actually beginning to enter the adult world, showing Scout his chest hair and contemplating trying out for football. Jem and Atticus discuss the judicial system in Maycomb County for much of Chapter 23. Their conversation is an education for Jem in the realities not only of the jury system but also of life. Atticus’s revelation that the Cunningham on the jury wanted to acquit Tom presents Jem with a remarkable instance of an uneducated white man being able to see beyond his ingrained racial prejudice—a further indication that the adult world is complex rather than black and white, as is the world of children.
Scout, meanwhile, moves closer to the adult world by drawing closer to Alexandra. Alexandra’s refusal to have the lowly Walter Cunningham to dinner puts her at odds with Jem and Scout, providing them with another opportunity to deride Maycomb’s ludicrously irrational social hierarchy. But the missionary tea party reveals Alexandra’s better side. The scene brilliantly portrays the hypocrisy of the Maycomb ladies. “Mrs. Merriweather’s large brown eyes always filled up with tears when she considered the oppressed [in Africa],” Scout notes, yet the same woman can complain that “there’s nothing more distracting than a sulky darky.” In the wake of hearing of Tom Robinson’s tragic death, however, the tea party becomes an opportunity for the Finch women to display moral courage by maintaining a public facade of composure. Mr. Underwood likens Tom’s death to “the senseless slaughter of songbirds,” an obvious reference to the novel’s title. In this moment, Alexandra and Scout stand together as finches, as harmless as mockingbirds, forced to bear the white community’s utter disregard of justice.
Whereas Jem embraces entrance into the adult world, Scout seems reluctant about it. Jem proudly shows Scout his chest hair as a mark of his emergence into manhood. Scout’s badge of incipient womanhood, the dress that she wears to the missionary circle meeting, doesn’t suit her; she wears her usual tomboy trousers underneath. Additionally, whereas Jem intently discusses aspects of the complicated legal system with Atticus, Miss Stephanie teases the young Scout about growing up to be a lawyer. This difference in maturity between Jem and Scout manifests itself in the incident with the roly-poly bug. Wishing to withdraw back into the childhood world of actions without abstract significance, Scout moves to crush the bug. Jem, now sensitive to the vulnerability of those who are oppressed, urges her to leave the defenseless bug alone.
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