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A short class with Sarah and her students. The other ways are under More.
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After Chapter 19, Scout takes Dill outside. Whom do they meet, Student_1?
Dolphus Raymond, a white landowner who lives with a Black woman. The town thinks he is a drunkard, but the bottle he offers Dill holds only Coca-Cola.
Why does he pretend, Student_2?
So the town has a reason it can accept for the way he lives. If people think he is drunk, they do not have to face his real choices.
What does he say about Dill's tears?
That crying over the way people treat each other is something most people stop doing as they grow up.
So here is a man who hides inside a role, and children who still feel injustice openly.
What is the first weakness in the State's case that Atticus points out?
There is no medical evidence, so the case depends on the Ewells' word against Tom's.
What explanation does Atticus offer for Mayella's accusation?
That she broke a racial taboo by kissing a Black man, and in guilt and fear she turned on Tom to remove the evidence.
How does he treat Mayella while saying this?
He says he pities her, but he refuses to let her save herself at an innocent man's expense.
And what larger idea does he appeal to at the end?
That the court is the one place where everyone must truly be equal, so the jury must do its duty without prejudice.
Dolphus Raymond's pretence shows that the town prefers comfortable stories to uncomfortable truths.
Dill's tears show a sensitivity to injustice that, according to Mr. Raymond, most people lose with age.
Atticus moves from weak evidence to motive to the principle of equality.
Atticus pities Mayella but refuses to let her accusation destroy Tom.
the court is the place where everyone must truly be equal, whatever the community believes.
Example of irony: the town's supposed drunkard is sober, while the community that looks down on him is the one that is blind.
Example of rhetoric: Atticus moves from the facts to the motive to the principle, and the argument gains force at each step.
Example of balance: Atticus expresses pity for Mayella while still defending Tom, which shows that sympathy need not weaken a principle.
A bag of cola, a pretended sin; then Atticus speaks, and the truth comes in.
Picture the chapter as a door with two rooms behind it. In the first room a man pretends to be someone he is not so that he can be left alone. In the second a lawyer refuses to pretend, so that a man can be judged fairly.
Remember C.O.L.A. for the chapter: Cover story, Opinion of the town, Lack of medical evidence, Argument for equality.
E.Q.U.A.L. - Evidence is thin, Question of motive, Understanding for Mayella, Appeal to duty, Law treats all alike
Term
What does Dolphus Raymond carry in his paper bag?
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Term
Why does he pretend to be a drunkard?
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Term
Which gap in the State's case does Atticus stress?
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How does Atticus explain Mayella's accusation?
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Which principle does Atticus appeal to at the end?
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The final speech made by each lawyer before the jury decides, summing up the evidence and urging a verdict.
Evidence from a doctor's examination, which could show whether a physical attack of the kind alleged had taken place.
A strict social rule that forbids certain behaviour, such as the racial rules of Maycomb about contact between Black men and white women.
Pretending to hold standards or beliefs that one's actions do not support, or preferring a comfortable lie to an uncomfortable truth.
The principle that every person must be treated the same by the courts, whatever their race, wealth or position.
An unfair opinion formed about a person or group without knowledge or reason.
The art of speaking or writing persuasively, as in Atticus's carefully built closing speech.
In Chapter 20 of 'To Kill a Mockingbird', Scout and Dill meet Dolphus Raymond outside the courthouse and learn why he pretends to be a drunkard. They then return to hear Atticus's closing argument, which attacks the case against Tom Robinson and the racial assumptions behind it.
Chapter 20 has two halves. In the first, Scout takes the crying Dill out of the courtroom and they meet Dolphus Raymond, a white landowner who lives with a Black woman and whom the town thinks is a drunkard. His bottle holds only Coca-Cola, and he explains that he lets people believe the story because it gives them a reason for his way of life that they can accept. In the second half, the children return to hear Atticus's closing argument. He stresses that the State has offered no medical evidence, argues that Mayella accused Tom out of guilt and fear, rejects the assumption that Black men are liars and dangers to white women, and asks the jury to treat everyone as equal before the law.
Chapter 20 has two halves that complement each other. In the first, Scout and Dill leave the courtroom and meet a man whom the town has misjudged. In the second, they return in time to hear Atticus's closing argument. Both halves are about truth, and about the gap between how things appear and how they are.
Outside the courthouse. After the cross-examination in Chapter 19, Scout takes the crying Dill out of the courtroom. Away from the crowd they meet Dolphus Raymond, a white landowner who lives openly with a Black woman and has children with her, and whom most of Maycomb regards as a hopeless drunkard. He offers Dill a drink from the bottle he carries in a paper bag, and it turns out to contain only Coca-Cola. He explains that he lets the town believe he drinks because it gives people a reason for his way of life that they can accept. If they think he is drunk, they do not have to face the fact that he has chosen to live as he does. He also tells the children that Dill's tears show a feeling most people lose as they grow older. The scene shows a man who survives prejudice by playing a part, and two children who are still able to be moved by injustice.
Atticus's closing argument. The children go back in to hear Atticus sum up the case. He begins with the weakness of the State's evidence: there has been no medical evidence that a crime took place, and the case depends on the word of the Ewells against the word of Tom Robinson. He argues that the case should never have been brought. He then offers his own reading of the testimony. In his view Mayella, a lonely young woman, broke one of the strictest rules of her community by kissing a Black man, and when her father saw her she was driven by guilt and fear to put the blame on Tom and so remove the evidence of her own act. Atticus says that he pities her, but he refuses to let her save herself at the cost of an innocent man's life.
He then widens the argument. He rejects the assumption that Black men are liars who are dangerous to white women, and he calls it a lie. He acknowledges that people are not equal in talent or circumstance, but insists that in a court of law everyone must stand as an equal. He ends by asking the jurors to look at the evidence without prejudice, to do their duty and to believe Tom Robinson.
What the chapter shows. The chapter links two very different speakers, Dolphus Raymond and Atticus, who both challenge Maycomb's way of seeing. One does it by pretending, the other by speaking plainly in public. Together they present the novel's central moral argument: people should be judged as individuals and not through the labels their community gives them.