Who is Miss Caroline in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Miss Caroline Fisher is a new, young first grade teacher who did not grow up in Maycomb. Scout describes her as a person no more than twenty-one who

had bright auburn hair, pink cheeks, and wore crimson fingernail polish. She also wore high-heeled pumps and a red-and-white-striped dress.

She boards near them at Miss Maudie's and must be very pretty, because Scout says that when Jem first saw her he was "in a haze for days."

On the first day of school, Miss Caroline informs the class that she is from Winston County in North Alabama, a place different enough from Maycomb to make the young students suspicious of her. Her most important characteristic is that she an outsider who doesn't know Maycomb's ways. For this reason, she blunders, for example, by offering Walter Cunningham lunch money, not realizing he does not have a lunch because his family can't afford it. Miss Caroline also is distressed that Scout already knows how to read, and she forbids Scout to read at home because it will ruin her method of teaching reading.

Miss Caroline gets impatient with Scout for correcting her. Thinking Scout is a smart aleck, she hits Scout's hand with a ruler as a punishment. As a result, Scout does not want to return to school, but Atticus tells her it is how she will learn to get along with different kinds of people.

Miss Caroline serves largely to introduce the reader to the class hierarchy of Maycomb. She fades out after the first part of the book, and we don't know where she goes after Miss Maudie's house burns down.

Miss Caroline is Scout’s school teacher who is new to Maycomb. She is a young woman from Winston County in Northern Alabama who does not know much about the culture of her new town. She sets expectations for her students that do not take into account their context, like how she feels that she must teach Burris Ewell about proper hygiene practices. She tells him to bathe himself before he comes back tomorrow, but he laughs and says,

You ain’t sendin’ me home, missus. I was on the verge of leavin’—I done done my time for this year.

Miss Caroline is confused by this, but one of the students explains to her that it is simply accepted that Burris only comes to the first day of first grade every year.

As Miss Caroline learns about the ways of life in Maycomb, so does the reader. Another example of this is when Miss Caroline tries to get Walter Cunningham to accept a quarter but he refuses. Scout feels she has to explain to Miss Caroline that she is shaming Walter. She tells her,

Walter hasn’t got a quarter at home to bring you…

Walter’s actions in this moment reveal how people in this town pride themselves on self-sufficiency. Miss Caroline doesn’t understand that it is better to respect that than to force the people here to accept help. Scout’s comments only confuse and annoy her more, and she hits her with a ruler.

Can you provide quotes describing Miss Caroline's appearance in To Kill a Mockingbird?

In chapter two, Scout attends her first day of school and describes her young, first-grade teacher by saying,

Miss Caroline was no more than twenty-one. She had bright auburn hair, pink cheeks, and wore crimson fingernail polish. She also wore high-heeled pumps and a red-and-white striped dress. She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop (Lee, 16).

Despite Miss Caroline's attractive appearance, she is depicted as a rigid, inflexible school teacher, who is more concerned about following the curriculum instead of facilitating her students' natural abilities. Miss Caroline is also portrayed as an outsider, who hails from Winston County, which is a region full of Liquor Interests, big business, and Republicans. Miss Caroline proceeds to read a story about talking cats to her class, which bores the majority of the children, who don't understand or appreciate the story. Scout writes,

Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature (Lee, 17).

Miss Caroline is clearly not familiar with her students or their country backgrounds. When she discovers that Scout can read fluently, Miss Caroline tells her,

"Now you tell your father not to teach you anymore. It’s best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I’ll take over from here and try to undo the damage-" (Lee, 17).

Miss Caroline's reaction to Scout's unique ability to read at such a young age is perplexing and depicts her as a rigid teacher. In chapter three, Miss Caroline attempts to chastise and threaten Burris Ewell, which is the wrong thing to do. She tells Burris,

"Burris, go home. If you don’t I’ll call the principal" (Lee, 28).

Miss Caroline's threats indicate that she is resolute and demands respect from her students. The fact that she threatens an Ewell indicates that she is naive and unfamiliar with the townsfolk of Maycomb.

Scout's new first grade teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, made an immediate impact upon the younger members of the Maycomb community. "Jem was in a haze for days" after first meeting her, and even Scout had to admit that "She was a pretty little thing." An outsider from northern Alabama where "persons of no background" resided, Miss Caroline was fresh out of college and armed with new progressive educational philosophies unknown to Maycomb. She was about 21 years old and rented a room in the upstairs of Miss Maudie's house. That she was no ordinary new Maycombian was obvious:

     She had bright auburn hair, pink cheeks and wore crimson fingernail polish. She also wore high-heeled pumps, and a red-and-white-striped dress. She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop."  (Chapter 2)

Overdressed and overwhelmed by the children over which she had little control, Miss Caroline seemed to win over most of the children aside from Burris Ewell--who called her a " 'snot-nosed slut' "--and Scout, who believed that

Had her conduct been more friendly toward me, I would have felt sorry for her."  (Chapter 2)

Where is Miss Caroline from in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Miss Caroline is from Winston County, an area of North Alabama that is notorious in Maycomb.

Miss Caroline is the new first grade teacher.  She is brand new as a teacher.  When she introduces herself to the class, they are shocked.

I am from North Alabama, from Winston County." The class murmured apprehensively, should she prove to harbor her share of the peculiarities indigenous to that region… (ch 2)

Part of the problem is that Winston County is notorious for having seceded from the state of Alabama in the civil war, when Alabama seceded from the Union.  There are other reasons that people in Maycomb do not trust North Alabama.

North Alabama was full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background. (ch 2)

Miss Caroline being “peculiar” and from another region allows the reader to get information about Maycomb from an outsider’s perspective.  As Scout teaches Miss Caroline about Maycomb, the reader learns too.

In *To Kill a Mockingbird*, where is Miss Caroline from?

We do not know exactly where in Alabama Miss Caroline is from - only that she is from Northern Alabama. We find this out in Ch. 2.

Although she is from the same state, she is clearly out of her element in this small, poverty stricken town. It is obvious that Miss Caroline is an outsider. She seems utterly disconnected from the first graders she is tasked with teaching. We see this throughout Ch. 2, where her efforts to teach are met either with unexpected results or unhappy ones.

For example, when she puts the alphabet on the board for the class she is surprised to see that everyone knows it already. She doesn't realize they know it because the majority of the students are repeating the first grade. Then, when she realizes Scout can read, she admonishes her for learning outside of school. All of these moments help to set up Miss Caroline as an outsider in Maycomb.