In To Kill a Mockingbird, the narrator Scout Finch personifies the town of Maycomb as “an old town…a tired old town….” Through this description and description of the characters who make up the community, Maycomb becomes a complex character.
In Atticus’s discussion with his brother Jack, Atticus contributes to the idea that Maycomb is a complex character. Atticus realizes Tom Robinson will not get a fair trial in Maycomb. He realizes the town is sick...
In To Kill a Mockingbird, the narrator Scout Finch personifies the town of Maycomb as “an old town…a tired old town….” Through this description and description of the characters who make up the community, Maycomb becomes a complex character.
In Atticus’s discussion with his brother Jack, Atticus contributes to the idea that Maycomb is a complex character. Atticus realizes Tom Robinson will not get a fair trial in Maycomb. He realizes the town is sick because a black man will not get a fair trial by the citizens of Maycomb. Atticus worries that his children will grow up bitter and catch Maycomb’s disease:
You know what's going to happen as as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb's usual disease.
Maycomb as a character has complicated prejudices. It has laws that make it illegal for Dolphus to marry the love of his life because he is white and she is black. Dolphus pretends to be a drunk to explain why he loves and lives with a black woman. He has to pretend to be a drunkard to explain why he loves the black woman who is the mother of his biracial children.
Maycomb is slow to change. When Scout describes the people of Maycomb, they move slowly. They amble.
People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.
Maycomb's outward appearance is polite and gracious—but, as with many complex characters, its outward appearance can be misleading. Boo Radley is judged unfairly because he does not fit in with the gracious, polite, and refined people of Maycomb. Atticus is scorned because he defends a black man, an innocent black man. That is why the town of Maycomb baffles Atticus:
Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand...I just hope that Jem and Scout come to me for their answers instead of listening to the town. I hope they trust me enough...
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