often in their conversations, but yet seemed somewhat puzzled when called upon to identify it in a work of literature.  Unlike assonance, which is the repetition of a particular vowel sound, alliteration, the repetition of initial cosonant sounds, can be recognized visually as well as phonetically. 

Here are some additional examples with the letter's sound indicated:

CHAPTER 1

(the very first sentence!)

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow /b/

As Scout relates the family history, she describes her father's law office in the sixth paragraph:

Atticus's office in the courthouse contained litle more than a hat rack, a spittoon, a checkerboard, and an unsullied Code of Alabama. /c/

In this same chapter, the final paragraph contains another example:

The old house was the same, droopy and sick, but as we stared down the street we thought we saw inside shutter move. /s/

CHAPTER 2

In the thirty-first paragraph, Scout describes the action of her teacher:

Miss Caroline walked up and down the rows peering and poking into lunch containers, nodding if the contents pleased her, frowning a little at others.  /p/

As Burris Ewell leaves the schoolroom, he shouts back at Miss Caroline,

'Aint' no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin'!'   /s/  and /m/

CHAPTER 3

Not far from the end of the chapter, Atticus explains the history of the Ewells to the children:

'In certain circumstances, the common folk judiciously allowed them certain privileges by the simple method of becoming blind to some of the Ewells activites.' /c/  /b/

CHAPTER 4

In paragraph eighteen, Scout describes a change at home:

For some reason,...Calpurnia's tyranny unfairness, and meddling in my business had faded to gentle grumblings of general disapproval.

CHAPTER 5

Describing their childhood play, Scout narrates in the fourth paragraph,

Our tacit treaty with Miss Maudie was that we could play on lawn,...terms so generous we seldom spoke to her, so careful were we to preserve the delicate balance of our relationship....  /t/  /m/

CHAPTER 6

As the children sit with Dill on his last night in Maycomb, Scout notices,

There was a lady in the moon in Maycomb. /m/

Your page numbers may vary with other copies of the novel, so you will have to find the location of the quotes in your own copy, but I will help you with a few.

Since this is a novel, you are not going to have tons and tons of alliteration like you would with a poem, but you will have some since language is language. Most of it will be in the text, not dialogue. For example, from Chapter 1, there is this instance of alliteration in the description of Maycomb:

In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. (grass grew and sidewalks sagged in the square)

In Chapter 2, Miss Caroline is reading the children a story about cats:

The cats had long conversations with one another, they wore cunning little clothes and lived in a warm house beneath a kitchen stove. (cats, conversations, cunning, clothes)

In Chapter 3, there are a few more examples when Walter comes to lunch at the Finch house.

The silver saucer clattered when he replaced the pitcher, and he quickly put his hands in his lap. (silver saucer)

In Chapter 4, the children are playing the "Boo Radley" game:

We polished and perfected it, added dialogue and plot until we had manufactured A small play upon which we rang changes every day. (polished, perfected)

From Chapter 5:

Miss Maudie's benevolence extended to Jem and Dill, whenever they paused in their pursuits...(paused, pursuits)

And so on. 

The language that Harper Lee uses can be separated by past and present, and by voice or perspective; these distinctions also correspond to adult and child. She also distinguishes between narrative and dialogue. It is primarily within the dialogue that Lee shows divisions in small-town Alabama society, which are largely based in race and class, and the intersection of those two factors.

The adult Jean Louise Finch is the first-person narrator, who is reminiscing about important events of her childhood. One of Lee's most impressive accomplishments is in making Scout believable as a child. One way she does this is by showing that Scout is a precocious child whose above-grade reading skills have given her a large vocabulary. Some of the novel's humor derives from her arrogant belief in her intellectual superiority when she mixes up big words.

An example of Scout's adult versus child contrast occurs in chapter 13, in her conversation with her father about the reasons Aunt Alexandra is staying with them. The child justifies to herself the lie she told, that she is glad her aunt is there, and then reflects that she did not understand a word her father said. In the next paragraph, the adult emerges in her detailed description of the aunt's background and education. The adult narrator uses phrases such as "she would exercise her royal prerogative."

An example of Scout's confused vocabulary is an incident in chapter 8, when she believes she hears Miss Maudie yell the word "morphodite" (not a real word) rather than "hermaphrodite" for Jem's gender-ambiguous snowperson.

Class distinctions, as presented in dialogue, are shown in chapter 3 by the conversation between the student Burris Ewell and the teacher, Miss Caroline. Lee represents the poor, white boy as using non-standard English, with pronunciations such as "fer" instead of "for," and grammatical constructions such as "I done done" for "I have done." His constant use of "ain't" is another class marker.

The class distinctions among white people are apparent in the testimonies of Bob and Mayella Ewell in the courtroom scenes (chapters 17 and 18). Bob's non-standard grammar includes "run" rather than "ran" in the past tense, and idiomatic expressions such as describing his daughter as "'screamin' like a stuck hog….'"

The differences in race and class combined emerge most strongly when Calpurnia takes the Finch children to her church (chapter 12). This scene is one of the most difficult in the book, as Lee's representation of what today is often called African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is filtered through her ear as an upper-class white woman. Many readers will likely be surprised or offended at Scout's description of black people's speech as "'nigger-talk,'" as the child struggles to understand why Calpurnia changes her speech patterns in this situation—what linguists call "code switching." Similarly, Jem's dismissive attitude is jarring, as he says she shouldn't talk that way "'when you know better.'" Calpurnia explains her reasons for situational use of "'white-folks' talk'" as class based, as she avoids it at home so her neighbors will not "think I was puttin' on airs."

Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird is written in the first-person perspective, and in the past tense. We can see this from the opening line of the novel: "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." Because the story is narrated in the first person and in the past tense, its language is personal, reflective, and sometimes nostalgic.

An example of language which might be considered nostalgic can be found in chapter 4. Here, Scout, looking back retrospectively, says:

Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse ... but most of all, summer was Dill.

Passages like this, in which an older Scout looks back fondly on innocent times from her childhood, are common throughout the text. Another example can be found in chapter 13, when Scout remembers with affection her relationship with her father:

I turned to go and met Atticus' vest front. I buried my head in it and listened to the small internal noises that went on behind the light blue cloth: his watch ticking, the faint crackle of his starched shirt, the soft sound of his breathing.

At times in the novel, Scout's language is also rather reflective, as the older Scout who narrates the story reflects on the lessons she learned when she was younger. For example, in the final chapter of the novel, Scout reflects that "Atticus was right...you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them." The ability to empathize with other people, and to thus not be too judgemental, is a lesson that Scout learns from her father throughout the course of the story.

Much of the story focuses on the exchanges between the three children—Scout, Jem, and Dill. The language of the story, especially in the parts which have lots of dialogue, is thus also characterized by the playful digressions and naivety one might expect from children. In the opening chapter, for example, Scout, Jem, and Dill are discussing how to make Boo Radley come out of his house. Jem, thinking aloud, says, "it's sort of like making a turtle come out ... Strike a match under him." Dill then asks, "How do you know a match don't hurt him?" Jem duly responds with, "Turtles can't feel, stupid." Insulted, Dill retorts, "Were you ever a turtle, huh?" These conversations are a huge part of the novel's charm. They also emphasize the innocence and naivety of the children and thus also, by contrast, the appalling injustices committed by so many of the adults.