Summary: Chapter 26
School starts, and Jem and Scout again begin to pass by
the Radley Place every day. They are now too old to be frightened
by the house, but Scout still wistfully wishes to see Boo Radley
just once. Meanwhile, the shadow of the trial still hangs over her.
One day in school, her third-grade teacher, Miss Gates, lectures
the class on the wickedness of Hitler’s persecution of the Jews
and on the virtues of equality and democracy. Scout listens and
later asks Jem how Miss Gates can preach about equality when she
came out of the courthouse after the trial and told Miss Stephanie
Crawford that it was about time that someone taught the blacks in
town a lesson. Jem becomes furious and tells Scout never to mention
the trial to him again. Scout, upset, goes to Atticus for comfort.
Summary: Chapter 27
By the middle of October, Bob Ewell gets a job with the WPA,
one of the Depression job programs, and loses it a few days later.
He blames Atticus for “getting” his job. Also in the middle of October, Judge
Taylor is home alone and hears someone prowling around; when he
goes to investigate, he finds his screen door open and sees a shadow
creeping away. Bob Ewell then begins to follow Helen Robinson to
work, keeping his distance but whispering obscenities at her. Deas
sees Ewell and threatens to have him arrested if he doesn’t leave
Helen alone; he gives her no further trouble. But these events worry
Aunt Alexandra, who points out that Ewell seems to have a grudge
against everyone connected with the case.
That Halloween, the town sponsors a party and play at
the school. This plan constitutes an attempt to avoid the unsupervised mischief
of the previous Halloween, when someone burglarized the house of
two elderly sisters and hid all of their furniture in their basement.
The play is an “agricultural pageant” in which every child portrays
a food: Scout wears a wire mesh shaped to look like ham. Both Atticus
and Aunt Alexandra are too tired to attend the festivities, so Jem
takes Scout to the school.
Analysis: Chapters 26–27
These short chapters are marked by a mood of mounting
mischief laced with a growing sense of real danger. They begin with
a reference to the Radley Place, the source of childhood terror
that no longer scares Jem and Scout—“Boo Radley was the least of
our fears,” Scout comments. The dissipation of Jem and Scout’s youthful
fear of Boo reflects how the trial has hardened them and how, in the
wake of the trial’s injustice and Bob Ewell’s threats, the children have
become increasingly mired in the more serious concerns of the adult
world. The Radley Place is part of the past now. The aura of scariness
attached to the name “Boo” has dissolved into curiosity, perhaps
even into fondness. As Jem and Scout gain a greater understanding
of Boo, he seems less like a town freak to them and more, in a strange
way, like a pet or a plaything. Scout still expresses a wish to
see Boo someday, and she remembers fondly the near encounters with
Boo during summers past. These memories restore Boo Radley to the
reader’s consciousness, which has been occupied with the trial for
most of Part Two, thereby foreshadowing Boo’s appearance a few chapters
later.
Meanwhile, the aftereffects of the trial continue
to loom, and Jem and Scout’s fading fear of Boo accentuates the
real danger that Bob Ewell’s various attempts at revenge present.
Bob Ewell shows himself to be sinister, and the fact that he has
not yet attempted anything against the Finches only increases the
sense of foreboding. Atticus remains confident in his own safety,
but this confidence begins to seem like wishful thinking. In fact, rather
than offer further thematic commentary, Lee devotes a great part
of these chapters to building tension and suspense by focusing on
the unpredictable threat that Bob Ewell poses. The misdeeds of the
previous Halloween, which lead to the idea of a Halloween play this
year, hint again at the damage caused by those who act without conscience.
Meanwhile, the incident involving Miss Gates reveals the
extent to which Jem remains affected by the trial. Despite the grim
experience of the trial, Scout retains her faith in the basic goodness
of others, and thus her teacher’s obvious hypocrisy confuses her.
Jem, meanwhile, has become disillusioned, and when Scout tries to
talk to him about Miss Gates, he shuts himself off from the painful
memory of the trial. Bob Ewell’s threats are not the only dark cloud
hanging over the Finch household in this section: the injustice
of the trial has changed Jem irrevocably.
