To Kill a Mockingbird Ch. 3: Burris Ewell and

To Kill a Mockingbird - Burris Ewell and Atticus's Advice

Harper Lee

An Excerpt

Burris Ewell and Atticus's Advice

Summary

At the Finch table Walter Cunningham talks farming with Atticus like a grown man, then pours syrup over his meat and vegetables until the plate is glazed. Scout asks him what he thinks he is doing. Calpurnia takes her into the kitchen and does not lower her voice. A guest in this house will eat the way he wants. Some children do not have syrup at home at all. Hospitality is not a licence to inspect another person's manners. If Scout cannot be polite she can finish dinner in the kitchen. Stung, she later asks Atticus to dismiss Calpurnia. He refuses. Calpurnia is family, and Scout will learn to live with a conscience other than her own.

The afternoon at school is worse. Miss Caroline sees a louse in Burris Ewell's hair and panics. Little Chuck Little handles the moment with more calm than the adult. Burris is filthy. He has come to the first day of first grade for years and left as soon as his name was marked, so the truancy officer will leave the Ewells alone. When Miss Caroline tells him to sit or to go home and wash, he insults her in front of the class and walks out while she weeps. The other children say, too late, that this is how an Ewell behaves. That evening Scout tells Atticus the rest. The Ewells live behind the dump. Bob hunts out of season, and Maycomb looks away so the children will not starve. The law, in their case, is a gesture. Scout wants the same exemption. If Burris can skip school, and if Miss Caroline will not let her read, why go back?

Atticus does not let her quit. She will keep going to school, because that is the law for her in a way it is not for an Ewell. In return they will keep reading at night, secretly if Miss Caroline must not hear of it. Then he gives her a larger rule. You cannot understand another person until you try to see the world as they see it, until you climb into that person's skin and walk a while in it. He means Miss Caroline, who walked into families she did not know. He also means Calpurnia, Walter, and the grades of pride and dirt Maycomb files under last names. Scout accepts the bargain if not the whole philosophy.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Climbing into Someone Else's Skin

You do not understand a person until you try their day from the inside, not from your own chair. Atticus tells Scout this after Calpurnia defends Walter's syrup and after Burris Ewell walks out on a weeping teacher.

Before you ask for an exemption or a firing, walk a while in the other person's constraints and then decide what you still owe.

Coming Up in Chapter 4

Walking home, Scout finds two sticks of chewing gum in a knothole of the Radley oak. Jem makes her spit them out. Later the same hole holds a box with two worn pennies, and the walk home starts to feel like a secret rather than only a ghost story.

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Chapter overview

396 wordsexcerpt

Chapter 03

Burris Ewell and Atticus's Advice

Critical Thinking Exercise

12 minutes

Walk One Hour in Their Constraints

Choose either Miss Caroline, Walter, or Calpurnia. Write one hour of their day from the inside: what they fear, what they cannot say, and what the room looks like from their chair. Then write one sentence about what Scout still owes after that walk.

Consider:

•What fact from this chapter must stay in the hour, so you do not invent a kinder or crueler person?
•Where does understanding stop short of agreement?
•What exemption or firing would you have asked for before the walk, and do you still want it?

Journaling Prompt

Write about a guest, classmate, or new teacher you inspected out loud. What would Calpurnia have said to you in the kitchen, and what bargain would have kept you in the room?

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Burris Ewell and Atticus's Advice

Summary