To Kill a Mockingbird Ch. 14: Dill Comes Back

Summary

Maycomb cannot stop talking about the Robinson case. Scout hears enough to know the charge is ugly and that Atticus is blamed for taking it. She asks him, straight out, what rape is. He gives a legal definition: carnal knowledge of a woman by force and without consent. The dry sentence takes some heat out of the gossip and still leaves the charge grave. Alexandra draws a different conclusion. She wants the household tightened. The church visit still offends her, and she sees no reason to keep Calpurnia as a second mother.

She wants Calpurnia dismissed. Atticus refuses without bargaining. Calpurnia has raised the children and earned a place he will not cancel to soothe his sister. He calls that place family. Scout feels relief, then a new tension. Jem, trying to be the adult, tells Scout to stop needling Alexandra. Scout hears betrayal. They fight hard. Scout hits him. He hits back hard enough to shock her. Atticus pulls them apart. The house Alexandra meant to civilise is suddenly loud.

That night Scout feels something under her bed and thinks of a snake. She calls Jem. They find Dill, filthy and hungry. He has run from Meridian because a new father does not want him and his mother is busy being newly happy. He felt unneeded, which to him is a kind of death, and rode toward the one place that has always wanted him for games. They fetch Atticus, who feeds him and tells Miss Rachel the boy is safe. Dill is allowed to stay. Later he tells Scout he wanted a baby in that house so someone would have to need him. He got a stepfather who smiled and looked through him. Scout thinks about Atticus, who answers questions and comes down the hall when called. Having a father who pays attention, she realises, is a kind of wealth Dill has never had.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Modern Story

Why This Matters

Noticing Who Is Unneeded

A smiling house can still starve a child of any role except not to spoil the new happiness. Dill lies in the dark and tells Scout he wanted his mother to have a baby so that someone in that house would have to need him, because the new father smiled and looked through him.

When a new pairing forms, ask who just lost every necessary task, and put a real one back in their hands.

Coming Up in Chapter 15

A group of Maycomb men will come to the Finch yard talking about the jail, and later a different group will gather in the dark downtown. Atticus will sit in a chair in front of the brick with a light and a newspaper. Scout will start talking to a face she knows.

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Chapter overview

316 wordsexcerpt

Chapter 14

Dill Comes Back

Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Give Back a Necessary Task

Name one person a recent change has made optional: a child after a new partner, a colleague after a restructure, a sibling after a relative moved in. Write the smile they now receive. Then invent one necessary task that would collapse if they left tomorrow, and write the sentence you would use to hand it to them tonight.

Consider:

•Is your current politeness a form of looking through them, like the stepfather's smile?
•What demand of yours, like Alexandra's wish to dismiss Calpurnia, is really a wish to tidy someone out of the inner rooms?
•If they travelled toward another house that still sees them, what would that journey tell you that their manners have been hiding?

Journaling Prompt

Write about a time you felt unneeded in a happy room. What would have counted as being seen, and who finally came down the hall?

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Dill Comes Back

Summary