How does Lee use details in this passage to present Miss Maudies view of

Maycomb?
Following Atticus unsuccessful defence of Tom Robinson, Miss Maudie
invites the children to her house for cake and explains her pride in Atticus
and other members of the Maycomb community, and her optimism that
racial injustice will one day cease.
Despite Jems disappointment in his father for having failed to get Tom
Robinson acquitted of the rape of Mayella Ewell, Miss Maudie tries to
teach him that there are some men in this world who were born to do
our unpleasant jobs for us. Her statement, I simply want to tell you that
connects to the ongoing theme of education and the Bildungsroman
structure of the novel; Miss Maudie is one of many adults who attempt to
teach the children about racial injustice in Maycomb. Her fatalistic
viewpoint, that Atticus was born to stand up for others, also betrays the
pre-deterministic attitude of the people of Maycomb, that the
Cunninghams are poor, the Finches always marry their cousins, and the
Ewells are absolute trash; ironically, it is this very attitude which
underpins the reasoning behind racial segregation in Alabamathat the
status you are born into determines the rest of your life. However, Miss
Maudies purpose in this sentence is primarily to endorse Atticus to his
son, and present him as heroic; the euphemistic, unpleasant job refers to
his ill-fated defence of Tom Robinson, which Atticus bravely completed at
the risk of his own life and that of his familys, despite knowing that we
were licked a hundred years before we started.
Lee presents Miss Maudies further viewpoint that the people of Maycomb
strongly disagree with the unfair treatment of Tom Robinson. When Jem
interrogates her, emotionally, with Who in this town did one thing to help
Tom Robinson, just who?, she challenges his preconception with the
tripartite anaphora, people like us, People like Jem Taylor. People like Mr
Heck Tate. Lee uses the private setting of Miss Maudies kitchen to allow
her to share the potentially dangerous information that, Youd be
surprised how many of us . Lee shows Miss Maudie using two different
strategies to challenge Jems frustration: the first is structural, in
reconfiguring his sentence, I thought Maycomb folks were the best folks
in the world with her parallel phrasing, Were the safest in the world; the
second is through imperative and interrogative statements, Stop eating
and start thinking, Jem. Did it ever strike you that Judge Taylor naming
Atticus to defend that boy was no accident? The Judge might have had
reasons for naming him? By engaging with the childrens current level of
understandingin part, through gentle humour (stop eating!, Lee
presents Miss Maudie as using a variety of rhetorical techniques to

persuade Jem that there is a passive dissent in Maycomb for Jim Crow laws
and the unjust legal system.
Finally, Lee uses Miss Maudies optimistic viewpoint, that were making a
step, to soften the shock of Tom Robinsons guilty verdict, both for Jem
and the reader. Her tripartite reflection that Atticus wont win, he cant
win, but hes the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long
in a case like that, is potentially used by Lee as a means of
communicating to the reader that the impact of Atticus performance in
court may well have been successful in challenging the racial attitudes of
the jury and Maycomb society, although it appeared a failure in the short
term. The two negative modal verbs, cant and wont, are succeeded by
the hopeful and enabling, can. In Harper Lees context of writing, this is
perhaps an allusion to the emerging success of the Civil Rights Movement
in challenging segregation in southern America.
In the novel as a whole, how does Lee show what life was like in a small
town such as Maycomb in 1930s southern America?
Set during the Great Depression in the Southern States of America, and
written a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, Lees Maycomb is
most shocking in its presentation of inequality and injustice; this is
reflected in her narrative treatment of racial segregation, reactionary
attitudes and gender.
Lee uses Miss Maudie as a mouthpiece for describing the uncomfortable
compromises the citizens of Maycomb are prepared to make in order to
co-exist peacefully: were the safest people in the world. Atticus
reference, earlier in the novel, to Maycombs usual disease refers to
racial prejudice, and betrays a passive acceptance that to be a citizen of
Maycomb is to be racist: Why reasonable people go stark raving mad
when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I dont pretend
to understand. Indeed, segregation is so entrenched in the attitudes of
both Negro and white communities in Maycomb that Lula tries to prevent
Jem and Scout attending Calpurnias church. However, Lees presentation
of changing attitudes to racehowever slowin Maycomb, is also an
essential aspect of her treatment of small town life: while Miss Maudie
sees the jurys slow return as a baby-step, Atticus sees the shadow of a
beginning in Walter Cunninghams double first cousin being the one
member of the jury who is rarin for an acquittal.
Lees use of nave viewpoints and narrative perspective is particularly
poignant in her presentation of small town life, and this is shown when
Jem uses figurative language to describe Maycomb as bein a caterpillar
in a cocoon. His simile refers to the reactionary attitude of its citizens,

and this is reflected in the slow pace of life: People moved slowly then.
This is reinforced in the adult narrator, Scouts, ironically humorous
reference to the disturbance between the North and the Souththe Civil
War!, and when Atticus observes states, Simply because we were licked a
hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.
Finally, Lees treatment of gender is central to her presentation of smalltown life in Alabama. Miss Maudies suggestion that Jem take up with your
father the issue of who is allowed to sit on a jury, anticipates a comical
scenario in which Scout imagines Miss Maudie and Mrs Dubose on a jury,
and concludes Perhaps our forefathers were wise. (in not letting women
serve on juries). However, Lee also satirises the hypocrisy of Mrs
Merriweathers missionary tea parties raising money for the Mrunas, while
condemning those who live in poverty in Maycomb: Mayella Ewell and
Helen Robinson.