Notes

The basic difference between Aunt Alexandria's and Atticus's views are that Alexandria represents the status quo for Alabama in the 1930s while Atticus is avant-garde, so to speak. That is, he is a 1960s man living in the 1930s. After all, for a Southern white man living in the Heart of Dixie during Jim Crow to profess that all people are basically equal would be virtually unheard of.

That Harper Lee places a man who represents the contemporary thinking of her environment at the time she wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird" (New York in the 1960s) and place him in her childhood world of South Alabama in the 1930s sets up the tension of her novel. Having placed this modern man in the Old South, Atticus's views receive grateful acceptance and rejection by the various types of people in the Main Street of Maycomb. Aunt Alexandria is simply one of these types: the Southern, genteel lady who socializes with the "right people," and whose charity is directed where it can be harmless and not disturb the status quo. She is a foil to the Civil Rights Era man, Atticus Finch, as are her ideas.

As part of his more liberal thinking, Atticus does not judge people by their socio-economic class as does Aunt Alexandria. Instead, he judges people on an individual basis--a concept heralded by Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement. This attitude of Atticus also makes him an anachronism for the 1930s in the South.

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A week after Dill’s arrival, a group of men led by the sheriff, Heck Tate, come to Atticus’s house in the evening. As his trial is nearing, Tom Robinson is to be moved to the Maycomb jail, and concerns about the possibility of a lynch mob have arisen. Later, Jem tells Scout that Alexandra and Atticus have been arguing about the trial; she nearly accused him of bringing disgrace on the family. The following evening, Atticus takes the car into town. At about ten o’clock, Jem, accompanied by Scout and Dill, sneaks out of the house and follows his father to the town center. From a distance, they see Atticus sitting in front of the Maycomb jail, reading a newspaper. Jem suggests that they not disturb Atticus and return home.


At that moment, four cars drive into Maycomb and park near the jail. A group of men gets out, and one demands that Atticus move away from the jailhouse door. Atticus refuses, and Scout suddenly comes racing out of her hiding place next door, only to realize that this group of men differs from the group that came to their house the previous night. Jem and Dill follow her, and Atticus orders Jem to go home. Jem refuses, and one of the men tells Atticus that he has fifteen seconds to get his children to leave.

Mr.Cunningham behaved different from the other men by not being aggressive in front a child like Scout, because one of his kids are the same age,