Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.

I believe that Scout was saying this as the narrator, hence the more gramatically correct sentences. This was like Scouts final thoughts on Boo Radley and sort of recapped the entire story in a paragraph. It was a great book.

I’m not a very good man, sir, but I am sheriff of Maycomb County. Lived in this town all my life an’ I’m goin’ on forty-three years old. Know everything that’s happened here since before I was born. There’s a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it’s dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead.

Heck Tate said this to Atticus after finding Bob Ewell dead. He knew that Boo Radley (Arthur) killed him to protect Jem and Scout. Before this I thought Heck was the type of person who didn’t put much thought into what goes on around town and stood by as things went wrong. But the way he said that Tom was dead for no reason made me think differently. “Let the dead bury the dead.”

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

This quote supports the fact that Scout is just a child and she nows little to nothing about the society that she lives in.

I don’t know [how they could convict Tom Robinson], but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it-seems that only children weep.

Atticus is saying this to Jem. This was (for me) when I really saw Atticus as not a racist person. I never thought he was but I always thought he was the type of person who could care less until I read this quote.

“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,” said Dill. “Yes, sir, a clown…. There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.” “You got it backwards, Dill,” said Jem. “Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them.” “Well, I’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”

I really like this sentence because it shows how inncocent Dill is and how oblivious he is to what life really is like. Jem is saying how it really is but Dill won’t hear it and wants to make his own reality.

“I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system – that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.”

Atticus was saying this to the jury during Tom Robinson’s trial. This sentence shows how Atticus wasn’t scared of the men who made up the jury. But if you actually think about what he is saying, he sort of saying this is already an unfair trial because of those who make up the jury and he is stating what he believes.

“So it took an eight-year-old child to bring ‘em to their senses…. That proves something – that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children.”

This sentence is very interesting because it shows that Atticus does kind of judge people but he also shows how much respect he has for Scout because she managed to stop Mr. Cunningham and his “gang” from killing Atticus to get to Tom by just talking to Mr. Cunningham about his son Walter. It’s also very funny!

As Mr. Dolphus Raymond was an evil man I accepted his invitation reluctantly, but I followed Dill. Somehow, I didn’t think Atticus would like it if we became friendly with Mr. Raymond, and I knew Aunt Alexandra wouldn’t. Page 267

These sentences show that Scout was taught right from wrong by Atticus, and did not plan to disappoint her father.  Scout knew that Atticus would not want her and Dill hanging around Mr. Raymond, so she contemplated the invitation to follow Dill.  It also brings up the racism aspect again because the only reason Mr. Raymond was seen as an evil man was that he had a black family.  That was seen as a crime by itself in Maycomb, so most of the bigots as well as the regular folk tried to keep their distance from him.  I feel bad for Mr. Raymond because he did not do anything wrong even though people thought it was wrong to live with the black community of Maycomb.  People discriminated against him just because his family was another race which shows the racism in Maycomb.

“That old Mr. Gilmer doin‘ him thataway, talking so hateful to him—” “Dill, that’s his job. Why, if we didn’t have prosecutors—well, we couldn’t have defense attorneys, I reckon.” Dill exhaled patiently. “I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me sick, plain sick.” Pages 265-266

This dialogue between Dill and Scout made me think a lot about the significance racism had in this book.  Almost the entire town of Maycomb was blinded by racism their entire lives, but we see glimpses of Scout, Jem, and Dill where they are not affected by racism.  Dill was so upset with Mr. Gilmer during his cross-examination, and he did not care that Tom Robinson was black.  Dill saw Tom as a human being and thought that all humans should be treated the same.  I also see moments where the racism gets to the kids.  Scout defends Mr. Gilmer when Dill is upset because her judgement is slightly clouded by the way she grew up.  Her entire life the people around her displayed racism as an okay thing, so I understand the difficulty of Scout’s situation.

Mayella stared at him and burst into tears. She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed. Judge Taylor let her cry for a while, then he said, “That’s enough now. Don’t be ‘fraid of anybody here, as long as you tell the truth. All this is strange to you, I know, but you’ve nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear. Page 240

I believe that in this part of the trial, Mayella is creating this whole scene on purpose.  I do not find her constant sobbing during her testimony sincere, but I believe her act earned her some pity from the jury.  From the beginning, the entire case was based on pity on a white woman as well as the simplicity to blame a black man for a crime.  The only part I do belive in Mayella’s testimony was that she was scared, not from Atticus like she said, but from her father.  I think this because I believe this whole incident was a cover up of Mr. Ewell beating his daughter.  Mayella was probably afraid of what her father would do to her if she screwed up her testimony and Mr. Ewell was discovered.  This just shows the amount of corruption that the case was tangled in from start to finish.