Discussion Topic
Miss Maudie vs. Miss Stephanie: Character and Attitude Comparison in To Kill a Mockingbird
Summary:
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie Crawford are contrasting characters. Miss Stephanie is the town gossip, spreading rumors and criticizing others, including Atticus Finch. She eagerly attends Tom Robinson's trial, enjoying the spectacle. In contrast, Miss Maudie is calm, understanding, and refuses to attend the trial, seeing it as morbid. She is honest, supportive of the Finch children, and acts as a positive role model, embodying a genuine, ladylike demeanor.
What are the differences between Miss Maudie's and Miss Stephanie's attitudes in Chapter 16 of To Kill a Mockingbird?
There are marked differences between the attitudes of Miss Stephanie and Miss Maudie. In Chapter 16, Miss Stephanie is eager and excited to attend the trial; on the other hand, Miss Maudie refuses to go.
On the day that the trial of Tom Robinson begins, there is a virtual parade of personalities: Mr. Dolphus Raymond, presumably drunk, rides by on his thoroughbred horse in an unsteady manner; a wagonload of women wearing long-sleeved cotton dresses are driven by a bearded man who wears a wool hat. They are Mennonites who rarely come to town. A backward man named X Billups passes; his name is X because an X is all his parents could write when they filled out the birth form. Various other odd individuals pass until the wagon of "foot-washers" pass and one woman shrilly criticizes Miss Maudie, citing a passage from the scripture.
This is the virtual...
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circus of people that the authentic Miss Maudie chooses not to be among in the courthouse. She also feels that it is "morbid" to watch the unfortunate Tom Robinson be on trial for his life, likening the entire affair to "a Roman carnival." On the other hand, Miss Stephanie delights in such goings-on because this occasion feeds her nature for gossip. She passes Miss Maudie's house wearing a hat and gloves for the "gala occasion." Clearly, Miss Maudie is much more charitable in her attitude about people than is Miss Stephanie, who delights in talking about what people have done and said as she has proven in previous chapters, when she has gossiped aboutBoo Radley and others.
Compare the characters Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie in To Kill a Mockingbird.
It's difficult to imagine two more contrasting characters than Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie. Miss Stephanie Crawford is Maycomb's resident gossip, a busybody who just has to make everyone else's business her own. She doesn't just love to spread gossip; she likes to stir things up. Just about everyone in town thinks Atticus is incredibly heroic for shooting the rabid dog, Tim Johnson, but not Stephanie. She wonders whether the dog's owner, Harry Johnson, will be quite so admiring of Atticus when he comes home and finds out his dog's been shot.
Miss Stephanie, in common with the other ladies of Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle, is something of a hypocrite. She expresses faux outrage over the condition of the poor, benighted natives of the Mruna in Africa whilst casually using racist epithets in condemning Maycomb's African American community.
Miss Maudie, on the other hand, is much more likable, though Miss Stephanie doesn't exactly set the bar too high in that regard. Maudie's a very relaxed, laid-back kind of person, taking life as it comes with a smile and a shrug. She retains her unshakable equanimity even after her house is completely destroyed in a fire. Oh well, she thinks, at least now I'll be able to build a home with a bigger garden.
And gardening is indeed Miss Maudie's real passion in life, and she likes nothing better than to spend most of the day slumming around in overalls. Yet at the same time, she still manages to retain a more genuine ladylike demeanor than most of the fine, upstanding ladies in town. In that sense, she acts as a much better role model for Scout than, say, Aunt Alexandra. Scout wants to be a lady, but not like those in Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle. She also wants to be a lady while still being able to wear overalls without fear. Miss Maudie shows her how.