Summary
The next morning, Dill challenges Jem to go further than the gate of the Radley property. Jem asserts that he is not scared because he goes past the house “nearly every day of [his] life,” but he doesn’t directly accept the dare. Instead, he, Dill, and Scout go out into the street to play with a rubber tire. They first roll Scout down the neighborhood, and she accidentally ends up in front of the Radley porch after a forceful shove. Dizzy and helpless, she is rescued by Jem, who drags her away from the yard. Before running away, Jem decides to take Dill’s dare, rushing to the house’s front door and touching it. The three children then run home, with Jem’s encouragement—“Run for your life, Scout! Come on, Dill!” Once they return to safety unharmed, an exhausted but proud Jem boasts, "Now who's a coward? You tell them about this back in Meridian County, Mr. Dill Harris."
Dill, clearly on an adrenaline high, validates Jem and suggests that they venture to the courthouse, where there are chains and “instruments of torture” to experience. They arrive to the courthouse and witness the grand jury charging Tom, with Dill hoisted up (by Jem and Scout) and peering through the window. He naively describes the scene from his own childish point of view: “Not much is happening. The judge looks like he's asleep. I see your daddy and a colored man. The colored man looks to me like he's crying. I wonder what he's done to cry about?...There's a whole lot of men sitting together on one side and one man is pointing at the colored man and yelling. They're taking the colored man away.”
Appalled, Atticus finds the children and sends them back home. Once Jem, Scout, and Dill leave, Robert E. Lee (Bob) Ewell—the bitter, hateful father of the alleged rape victim Mayella Ewell—approaches Atticus and challenges his decision to defend a black man. Ewell even threatens Atticus’s children (“What kind of man are you? You got chillun of your own.”) after Atticus declares his loyalty to Tom and excuses himself from Ewell.
That night, Jem and Dill decide to sneak out to the Radley property to “look in the window…and see if we can get a look at Boo Radley.” Nervous and hesitant, Scout follows behind them and declares, “Jem, please, I’m scared,” to which a snippy Jem replies, “I swear, Scout, you act more like a girl all the time.” The three children eventually crawl under a wired fence and approach the property. By himself, Jem creeps up the creaky stairs of the porch. He attempts to gaze into the house, but an ominous, large shadow of man looms over him and reaches out its hand, and the children cover their eyes in fear. The image soon mysteriously disappears.
Jem, Scout, and Dill then run back home, Jem’s pants getting caught in the wire fence forcing him to continue his hurried journey home without them. Once they safely arrive home, Jem decides to go back to the Radley property and retrieve his pants to avoid punishment from Atticus. Scout waits for fourteen slow seconds for her brother to return, but her counting becomes disturbed by the bang of a gunshot. Scout nearly gets teary-eyed out of fear, though Jem safely bursts through the fence in time. An anxious crowd in the street begins to form, with Mr. Radley explaining to Atticus and Stephanie that he shot his shotgun because of a prowler in his collard patch.
Time passes, and Dill returns back home to Mississippi. Maudie walks to the Finch household to have breakfast on Scout’s first day of school. Scout, out of her natural tomboy element, joins the table with a dress on. Maudie says Scout’s dress is “mighty becoming,” but she tugs at it and laments, “I still don’t see why I have to wear a darn old dress.” After Jem pressures Scout to finish her breakfast, the two of them leave for school.
We then cut to Scout provoking a fight with Walter Cunningham Jr.—the young son of the farmer we saw in Part 1—and rubbing his face on the schoolyard dirt. Jem breaks up the fight and restrains Scout as she reasons why she got into the tussle: “He made me start off on the wrong foot. I was trying to explain to that darn lady teacher why he didn't have no money for his lunch, and she got sore at me.” Jem excuses Scout’s behavior to Walter and invites him over for dinner.
At the Finch household, Walter—who is used to eating squirrels and rabbits with his family—expresses excitement over the dinner (roast beef, corn bread, turnips) and asks for syrup. Jem asks Walter if he has a gun of his own, and Walter says he does; Jem also asks Atticus when he first received a gun. Atticus then shares his own experiences with a gun at the age of 13 or 14; he explains how his father permitted him to shoot most birds, with the notable exception of a mockingbird, an innocent type of songbird. Atticus declares that “it was a sin to kill a mockingbird” because they only exist to offer music and pleasure to people.
After Atticus’s short speech, Calpurnia gives Walter his requested syrup. Walter pours the thick syrup all over his meal; a disgusted and baffled Scout hurts Walter’s feelings when she shouts, “What in the Sam Hill are you doing…he’s gone and drowned his dinner in syrup and then he’s pouring it all over.” Calpurnia calls Scout in the kitchen and urges her to treat Walter with respect, regardless of his unconventional behavior: "That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear? And if you can't act fit to eat like folks, you can just set here and eat in the kitchen.” Calpurnia then sends Scout back to the kitchen and slaps her bottom as she leaves.
Clearly upset, Scout rushes outside to the porch, and Atticus follows her. Atticus sympathetically listens to Scout as she reflects on her dreadful first day of school and criticizes her teacher. He then tries to get Scout to understand how the teacher was likely nervous since it was her first day as well, which could explain her dismissive behavior toward Scout. Atticus presents her with a valuable lesson in empathy—“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”—which will help her get along with more people. He also defines a compromise, “an agreement reached by mutual consent,” and suggests that Scout will continue to go school, and in exchange, she and he will keep reading together every night. The father and daughter finish their talk, and via voice-over, the older version of Scout praises her father: "There just didn't seem to be anyone or anything Atticus couldn't explain. Though it wasn't a talent that would arouse the admiration of any of our friends, Jem and I had to admit he was very good at that, but that was all he was good at, we thought.”
Analysis:
In Part 2 of To Kill a Mockingbird, the film continues to center on Scout, Jem, and Dill’s summertime adventures, fascination with Boo, and active imaginations. In addition to the continued exposition of our characters and the setting of Maycomb, Part 2 introduces two of the film’s most crucial themes: traditional gender roles and the importance of empathy.
In the early to mid 20th century, the roles of women in society were often repressed and constrained. Women were limited to being diligent homemakers, caring and nurturing mothers, and loyal wives, while men dominated the workforce. Thus, within the time and setting of To Kill a Mockingbird, normative gender roles are regularly reinforced, and young children are expected to display traditional traits associated with men and women: dominance, strength, and aggression for men, and weakness, politeness, and compliance for women. In To Kill a Mockingbird, society dictates inflexible gendered behaviors, and it is rare for people to cross the barrier between masculinity and femininity. As a proud, fierce, and tough tomboy, Scout, however, crosses these lines.
Scout initiates fights with boys, spends the majority of her time playing with Jem and Dill and embarking on rebellious adventures, and has a wardrobe comprising of muddy shoes and overalls. In other words, she prefers masculine activities and does not conform to the “ladylike” behavior expected of her, and she becomes rightfully angry when her outside environment pushes her to do so. When Scout wears a dress on the first day of school, she clearly is uncomfortable and displeased, even when Miss Maudie applauds the dress as “mighty becoming.” Because dresses are deemed the appropriate clothing for girls, Scout doesn’t have the agency to retreat back to her boyish attire. With this understated, amusing, yet poignant scene, Mulligan displays how the societal expectations of femininity are unjustifiably thrust upon girls at a young age.
Conversely, when Scout does (occasionally) uphold conventional feminine behaviors, she is subjected to discriminatory comments. When she frightfully warns Jem and Dill against sneaking out to the Radley property, Jem retaliates with, “I swear, Scout, you act more like a girl all the time.” By insinuating that girls are weak and cowardly, Jem’s manipulative remark is fueled with gender prejudices. Scout is so repulsed by the idea of exhibiting feminine behaviors that she complicity ends up accompanying Jem and Dill on their reckless adventure, in an effort to avoid exclusion from the boys and further accusations of acting like a girl. Scout is in a precarious liminal position—if she behaves like a traditional polite and gentle Southern girl, she is condemned by her closest companions (Jem, Dill), but if she uninhibitedly shows her tomboyish qualities, she is pressured by society at large to alter her behavior and become more “ladylike.”
In Part 1, we are introduced to the film’s dominant point of view of the innocent child. The egotistic children, namely Scout, don't yet understand life’s ambiguities and consider perspectives contrary their own. In Part 2, this theme is expanded, and we see how Scout’s limited point of view hurts others. Notably, one of the film’s other major themes—the need for empathy—is introduced as a counterpoint for her limited perspective.
Scout’s first day of school goes poorly because she has trouble seeing outside of her own point of view. Whether interacting with adults with other children, Scout is a fundamentally good person who always means well, but she makes some honest missteps. She attempts to tenderly explain the situation of the Cunninghams to her teacher but only receives punishment in return. She perceives the teacher’s “sore” behavior as a failure on behalf of the teacher, and becomes frustrated in her inability to comprehend why the teacher behaved differently than Scout expected (as lamented during her conversation with Atticus on the porch). By starting a brawl with the poor Walter Jr., she unfairly projects her frustration onto him, and she repeats her well-meaning but mistaken proclivities after criticizing him for putting too much syrup on his dinner. Now that Scout is in school and has emerged from the imaginative and idyllic childhood setting in Part 1, she is expected to inhabit the adult world with more maturity and empathy.
Atticus draws the parallel between the child and adult world—and Scout’s necessity to adapt to an at-times-inexplicable and unfair adult world—during his and Scout’s discussion on the porch swing. He offers critical but accessible moral advice: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” Here, Atticus urges Scout to refrain from making judgments about others until she considers their individual, unique perspective. This wisdom reflects Atticus’s own principles and his ability to phrase abstract concepts in terms that Scout can digest (“climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”) Atticus’s words catalyze the theme of empathy and serve as a blueprint for Scout and the other children’s attempts to treat people with sympathy and interpret other complicated, unjust events in the film.
