What is the tone of chapter 1 in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The tone of chapter 1 is reminiscent and humorous.

Tone is the author’s attitude toward the subject. In the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is an adult looking back on her childhood.  She describes her town, Maycomb, and her family in great detail.  She gives a lot of history of both the town and family.

When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. (ch 1)

When Scout looks back at the events of her childhood, it is with a combination of pleasure and sadness.  She has fond memories, but there were some difficult ones too.  The tone of this first chapter helps to establish this.

As Scout tells us her family history, there is a lot of witty humor. For example, she describes the importance of heredity to the people of Maycomb.

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. (ch 1)

This both imparts information and makes the reader laugh.  We also learn some interesting things about Scout’s family, including her brother Jem and her lawyer father Atticus.  Atticus is a single dad, raising the two young children with the help of his housekeeper Calpurnia.

Chapter 1 may read like a history book, but it is also full of dry wit.

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum. (ch 1)

All in all, we learn quite a lot.  The book establishes the information we need to really sink ourselves into the setting, because setting is so crucial to the understanding of the story.

What are the tone and mood of Chapter 15 in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The literary terms mood and tone are easy to confuse. Mood is defined as the "feelings or vibes" a literary piece evokes in a reader due to its words and other literary devices (Literary Devices, "Mood"). Mood can also be defined as the "atmosphere of a literary piece" ("Mood"). The term tone is defined as the writer's attitude toward the subject matter of the piece (Literary Devices, "Tone"). In Chapter 15 of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch faces a mob, but the tense situation is successfully diffused. As the plot of the chapter progresses, both the mood Lee establishes and her tone shift from negative to positive.

Lee opens the chapter by establishing a very threatening mood. The reader feels as threatened by the appearance of the mobs as the children do and, eventually, as Atticus confesses to do. Though Atticus claims the group of men in the Finch's front lawn led by Sheriff Heck Tate are friends of the Finch's, the reader can't help but notice that they challenge Atticus's decision to defend Tom Robinson and angrily move towards him the moment he says, "Link, that boy might go to the chair, but he's not going till the truth's told ... And you know what the truth is." The fact that they move towards Atticus when he says this creates tension and helps establish the threatening mood of the chapter. The mood becomes even more threatening when the mob led by Walter Cunningham Sr. appears before Atticus in front of the jail.

However, despite the earlier threatening mood, the mood shifts to one of relief the moment Cunningham kneels before Scout, takes her by "both shoulders," and says, "I'll tell [my son] you said hey, little lady," then breaks up the crowd, telling them to go home. The reader further senses the mood of relief the moment Atticus is described as turning away, "leaning against [the jail] with his face to the wall," and wiping his face with his handkerchief.

The events in the chapter also clearly portray the author's disapproving tone. Like Atticus, it is clear through the themes author Lee establishes throughout the book that Lee disapproves of racial prejudices and of the anger that such prejudices incite. Hence, in describing the actions of both Sheriff Tate's mob and Walter Cunningham's mob, Lee is portraying her tone of disapproval.

Yet, just like the mood takes a positive turn in the chapter, so does her tone. Through comments the character Atticus makes throughout the book, Lee shows that all people have two sides to their nature: a good side and an evil side. Plus, when nurtured, the good side shines through. Hence, Lee uses Scout's unexpected ability to pacify Walter Cunningham by treating him like a human being and showing him kindness to show that the good nature of even one who feels as angry as Cunningham can be nurtured. Therefore, Lee uses the pacification of Cunningham to transition her tone from one of disapproval to one of acceptance to show that, like Atticus, Lee accepts both the good and the bad of all human beings.

What tone is used in chapters 23-27 of To Kill a Mockingbird and its meaning?

After the farcical trial of Tom Robinson, the tone of the narration evolves from that of the naive voice of the child that has a touch of irony to a more cynical one whose tone is darker. In Chapter 23, for instance, Scout describes Bob Ewell as "a veteran of an obscure war" who spits at Atticus as he leaves the post office. This act demonstrates the retributive nature of Atticus.

In Chapter 25, this cynical tone continues as Scout narrates that the news of Tom's trial was of interest to the community for two days, the time it took to spread throughout the town. But, soon, interest wanes. Scout imitates what the gossip,

To Maycomb, Tom's death was typical. Typical of a n*****r to cut and run. Typical of a n****r's personality to cut and run. Typical...to have no plan, no though for the future, just run blind first chance he saw. Funny thing, Atticus Finch might've got him off scot free, but wait--? Hell no. You know how they are....

Here Scout depicts the conventional thought that is momentarily disturbed at the thought that Tom may have been innocent, although a quick rejection of this though is made.

These observations of Scout are followed by her reporting of the editorial written by Mr. Underwood and published in the Colored News section. In this editorial, Underwood, known for "hating Negroes," expresses in vitriolic tones, his disdain for the values of many of the white society in Maycomb: 

Mr. Underwood simply figured it was a sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting, or escaping. He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children and Maycomb thought he was trying to write an editorial poetical enough to be reprinted in The Montgomery Advertiser.

In both of these representations of the thoughts of others, Scout depicts both her skepticism and that of Mr. Underwood that the death of kind, innocent Tom Robinson was, indeed, a stain upon the entire town of Maycomb. 

What is the tone in chapter 28 of To Kill A Mockingbird?

This is the chapter in which Jem and Scout are attacked as they cross the dark schoolyard on their way home from the pageant. The tone is ominous. It is a tone of slowly building tension and confusion. Even after the attack happens, the tension and confusion do not completely dissipate. They continue until the end of the chapter, when we find out from Mr. Heck Tate that Bob Ewell attacked the children, and that Bob Ewell has been stabbed dead.

The ominous tone is created against a homey backdrop. There is humor in the first few pages of the chapter, when Mrs. Merriweather narrates her overblown pageant about Maycomb County, and Scout blunders onto the stage, late, in her ham costume. Before the children even get to the pageant, Harper Lee has already given us clues this will be a scary evening.  

On the way to the school, walking by the old Radley place, Jem and Scout discuss how they used to be scared of Boo Radley and haints. Scout, in her narration, adds, "Haints, Hot Steams, incantations, secret signs, had vanished with our years as mist with sunrise." Yet, the next moment she tells Jem to "Cut it out" when he talks about haints. A moment later, she trips on a tree root (foreshadowing what will happen later). There is some discussion about how remote the old oak tree is from all buildings except the Radley place, and how dark it is under the tree. Cecil Jacobs then jumps out and scares Jem and Scout. This is the classic "decoy" jump scare that sets us up for the real thing later. 

After the pageant, the two children begin to walk home across the schoolyard by themselves. Tension and confusion are taken up a notch because Scout, who is narrating the story, is still in her ham costume and can't see out of it. Jem is leading her. Then the tension builds rapidly as the children begin to hear someone following them. There are many little phrases in this section to give us a clue that something is not right:

• "I felt [Jem's] fingers press the top of my costume, too hard, it seemed."
• "'Be quiet,' he said, and I knew he was not joking."
• "This was the stillness before a thunderstorm."
• "'Aw, it's just Halloween got you. . . ' I said it more to convince myself than Jem, for sure enough, as we began walking, I heard what he was talking about."

And so on. 

When the actual attack comes, Scout (and by extension, the reader) still cannot really tell what is going on.  

After the attack, as she makes her way back to the house, following the mysterious man who is carrying Jem's body, Scout still does not know what really happened. (It will take the next few chapters for everyone to sort out the logistics of what happened.) When she first returns to the house, her question is, "Is Jem dead?" The adults in the house are just as confused as Scout. Aunt Alexandra is so distracted that she hands Scout her overalls to put on (Aunt Alexandra hates Scout's overalls, and prefers she wear dresses).  

The confusion, and hence the tension of not knowing exactly what happened, continues until the very end of the chapter. People come and go, including the doctor and Heck Tate. When Heck Tate gets there, he takes his time revealing the identity of the man under the tree. This keeps the ominous tone going until the very last line of the chapter.

How does the description of Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird set the mood and tone?

Maycomb, Alabama is described as being a "slow town," where the majority of the inhabitants are old and there are no significant attractions. It is portrayed as a small country town, and the community is predominately made up of conservative, traditional Southern citizens, who are prejudiced against African Americans. In chapter 1, Scout describes her hometown by saying:

People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County (Lee 5).

Scout's description is significant because like the slow-moving town, the citizens also cling to their backward, traditionalist ways. Throughout the novel, Scout's father challenges the racist culture of Maycomb by defending a black man in front of a prejudiced jury. As Scout and Jem mature, they begin to notice the overt prejudice throughout their community and witness racial injustice firsthand. Atticus, a proponent of equal rights, and a few other citizens wish to alter the prejudiced perception throughout Maycomb's community. The jury members who wrongly convict Tom Robinson and the racist citizens who criticize Atticus represent the traditionalist culture of Maycomb. Despite Atticus's loss, Miss Maudie tells Jem:

Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we’re making a step—it’s just a babystep, but it’s a step (Lee 220).

Even though Maycomb and its citizens are described as being slow, the reader gets a sense that the culture is gradually moving towards equality and is slowly changing for the better. 

What are some examples of diction in To Kill A Mockingbird?

Diction is simply word choice.  Since this story takes place in the South during the great depression, several characters speak in unique ways.

Scout and Jem

Scout and Jem are children of the South.  They speak often in Southern slang. 

"Shoot no wonder, then," said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. "Scout yonder's been readin' ever since she was born, and she ain't even started to school yet. You look right puny for goin' on seven." (ch 1)

This is one of the first real examples of dialogue in the story, and here the diction establishes the setting very well.  The words in bold are all examples of carefully chosen Southern diction.  Some of the words and phrases are much more common in the South.  For example, “yonder” and “goin’ on” are distinctly chosen phrases.

Atticus

Atticus is one of the few educated people in Maycomb, and this is demonstrated by his choice of words.  Of all of the characters, Atticus seems to choose his words most carefully.  He is a lawyer, after all.

"They can go to school any time they want to, when they show the faintest symptom of wanting an education… There are ways of keeping them in school by force, but it's silly to force people like the Ewells into a new environment-" (ch 3)

Atticus always speaks clearly and distinctly chooses his words.  He does not speak down to his children, and they are more intelligent for it.

Calpurnia

Scout notes that when Calpurnia is at church with the other black people she talks differently than when she is at home.  Calpurnia is an example of a code-switcher, someone who changes diction based on who the audience is in order to fit in better. 

"Baby," said Calpurnia, "I just can't help it if Mister Jem's growin' up. He's gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin' whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the kitchen when you feel lonesome…." (ch 12)

Calpurnia’s talk is also a prime example of the Southern dialect, and her diction is a mixture of educated and uneducated, especially when she is speaking affectionately as she is here.

What are some examples of mood in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Mood refers to the feelings writers evoke in their readers through word choices as well as through the setting and themes of the story. Since Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is realistic in the sense that it strives to portray everyday life as it normally is in Southern towns like the fictional Maycomb, Alabama, Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird also frequently shifts in mood. Furthermore, the novel frequently shifts in mood because it is a coming-of-age story that spans the life of two years of growing children. Regardless of shift in mood, a humorous mood is the most dominant mood since Lee creates characters with a sense of humor who are able to remain upbeat.

A humorous mood is the first mood captured in the first chapter and a mood Lee maintains throughout the book even surrounding moments that are darker in mood. Lee's humorous mood is especially captured in the narrator Scout's playful personality and sense of humor. Humor is especially captured in Scout's sense of irony. For example, Scout opens the book by referring to the moment Jem's arm was severely broken, a moment we learn about in detail by the end of the book. Though Scout begins the opening paragraph by describing the permanent affects of the injury, such as uneven arm lengths and a hand that no longer lays correctly against Jem's side as he walks, she ends the paragraph in a very nonchalant manner by saying, "[Jem] couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt" (Ch. 1). Scout's nonchalance and her ability to capture her brother's own nonchalance towards the situation helps convey the characters' senses of humor, which further shows that they have learned to view tragic moments with humor, and to paint the humorous mood that Harper Lee created to dominate the story, despite any sorrows or tragedies in the story.

Lee continues to create her humorous mood through Scout when she narrates the debate she and Jem had as an adult about what specific events led up to his arm being broken. Scout argued that "the Ewells started it," while Jem argued it started when he and Dill began trying to make Boo Radley come out of his home. Scout expresses her sense of humor by stating one could really connect the story of Jem's arm to the start of Finch history in Alabama, as we see in her following passage:

I said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson. If General Jackson hadn't run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch would never have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn't? (Ch. 1)

In this passage, Scout is using verbal irony to sarcastically tie the story of Jem's broken arm to General Andrew Jackson. In other words, Scout doesn't truly believe that one should take the story back that far and is expressing her belief sarcastically. Lee uses lots of verbal and other types of irony throughout the story to develop the humorous mood.

What is one example of tone used in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The tone of the story shows the writer's perspective. The writer shows a disapproving tone toward the hypocrisy in Maycomb. This is evident during the missionary circle tea. Mrs. Grace Merriweather is deeply concerned about the well-being of the Mruna people. She praises J. Grimes Everett, the missionary who works with the Mrunas. In the same conversation, she criticizes the African Americans in Maycomb:

"...the cooks and field hands are just dissatisfied, but they're settling down now—they grumbled all next day after that trial" (To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 24).

Mrs. Merriweather has a hired girl named Sophy. She says that she would fire Sophy without hesitation if she complained for days. Mrs. Merriweather knows Sophy needs the money she earns to survive. She seems more concerned about the Mruna people than about those in her own community.

Maycomb is full of people who treat African Americans as lesser beings. They are treated like second class citizens. Mrs. Merriweather shares her thoughts on African Americans at the missionary circle meeting:

"Hypocrites, Mrs. Perkins, born hypocrites," Mrs. Merriweather was saying. "At least we don't have that sin on our shoulders down here. People up there set 'em free, but you don't see 'em settin' at the table with 'em. At least we don’t have the deceit to say to 'em yes you're as good as we are but stay away from us. Down here we just say you live your way and we'll live ours."

Mrs. Merriweather believes that southerners are being honest by segregating themselves from African Americans. She points out hypocrisy in others without seeing it in herself.

What is one example of tone used in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Tone is the attitude of the writer toward her subject matter, characters, and sometimes toward her readers. Because the narrator is an adult talking about her younger self, the tone is sometimes ironic in that there is a disparity between what the younger and older self know.  We see this, for example, in the opening sentence of chapter 10:  "Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty."  Even the next sentences begin to qualify this, but the narrator is smiling to herself as she says these words because she knows he was not feeble, but the child Scout does not:  to a child of eight, 50 is feeble.

What is one example of tone used in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Lee's tone towards the educational system is negative and critical.  Consider this quote:

"The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed "the," "cat," "rat," "man," and "you." No commend seemed to be expected of us, and the class received these impressionistic revelations in silence. I was bored, so I began a letter to Dill. Miss Caroline caught me writing and told me to tell my father to stop teaching no."

That Scout, the narrator, has misunderstood the Dewey Decimal System and that she presents Miss Caroline as naive and incompetent demonstrates Lee's criticism.

In To Kill A Mockingbird, how does the setting establish the tone?

Harper Lee's classic of American literature, To Kill a Mockingbird, tells the story, through the first-person narration of its young protagonist, Scout, of her and her brother Jem's coming of age in the American South during the 1930s. This is no ordinary decade in modern American history, and Lee's novel takes place in no ordinary setting. The 1930s were the years of the Great Depression, when unemployment levels were extraordinarily high and the American South remained mired in the racial policies and practices of the post-Civil War era. This combination of economic destitution and racial segregation is the setting for To Kill a Mockingbird, and this setting does indeed set the tone for the narrative that follows.

While Lee sets her novel in the very real American South, she uses a fictitious town in the state of Alabama as her setting. Maycomb serves as a template for the place and time in which To Kill a Mockingbird takes place. It is a small town with a poor population. As Scout describes her birthplace early in the novel:

What are two moods present during the Tom Robinson trial in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The two moods in the trial are suspense and humor.

In extremely tense trial, there is a need for comic relief.  Although we learn a great deal about the Ewells and Tom Robinson through serious testimony, there are also moments of humor.

First of all, most of the trial’s mood is suspenseful.  People have been waiting for the trial for a long time, and there is a great deal of anticipation.

The moon is suspenseful and tense when there is testimony about the alleged crime, such as when Atticus is asking Mayella about what happened to her.

"You seem sure enough that he choked you. All this time you were fighting back, remember? You 'kicked and hollered as loud as you could.' Do you remember him beating you about the face?" (ch 18)

This is a serious mood, but we also want to know what is going to happen next.  We are on the edge of our seats as Heck Tate and Mayella testify, and during most of Tom’s own testimony.  The stakes are high, and we know it.

Yet there are also moments of humor to break of the tense parts.

"Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?" was the next question.

"Well, if I ain't I can't do nothing about it now, her ma's dead," was the answer. (ch 18)

This response is met by laughter from the courtroom, because this is a joke.  Judge Taylor does not approve, of course, and scolds Ewell about keeping his language proper.  Although it is somewhat low humor, it does break up the tension.

The trial chapters continue for some time, and it would be difficult to keep the suspenseful mood for so long.  Therefore Lee alternates between informative, suspenseful, and humorous to keep the reader interested.

What are qualities of the setting in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and how do they contribute to the tone and mood of the story?

Since Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird spans a time period of three years, the novel's setting is very complex and shifts in some ways as time passes for the characters. Setting includes such qualities, also called characteristics, as location, time period, culture, and even weather. As these qualities change, so can the mood and tone change in the story.

One fascinating shift in the setting occurs in Chapter 8 in which it is so cold that it actually snows in Maycomb. Mr. Avery, the Finches' neighbor, reports that it is the coldest winter in Maycomb since 1885. On the day it starts snowing, Scout is so shocked she calls to Atticus from her bedroom window, saying, "The world's endin', Atticus! Please do something--!," and Mr. Avery blames the children for the snow, saying, "It's bad children like you makes the seasons change" (Ch. 8). The presence of snow in Maycomb creates both a playful and and apprehensive mood.

The term mood refers to the emotions that a writer arouses in a reader. The presence of snow leads to very lighthearted, playful moments such as Jem and Scout building a snowman, partially out of mud and partially out of snow. They make the snowman to look like Mr. Avery but attempt to cover up their tracks by decorating him with Miss Maudie's possessions to make him look like Miss Maudie instead. Such playful moments create a very playful mood. Yet, it is obvious that the snow has a much greater symbolic purpose that creates a very apprehensive mood.

Since snowfall in Maycomb is out of the ordinary, the snow symbolizes unusual things to come such as Atticus genuinely putting his all into defending an African-American man, Tom Robinson. Fascinatingly, Jem's snowman is made of black mud but covered in a layer of white snow, which symbolizes black and white racial tensions in Maycomb. In addition, the snowman looks like contrary old Mr. Avery who calls the children "bad" and later expresses disapproval of Atticus's involvement in Robinson's case; therefore, the snowman symbolizes and foreshadows the ridicule the children will soon face as a result of their father being Robinson's defense lawyer. All of these deeper, symbolic meanings of the setting help to paint a very apprehensive and even foreboding mood because they allow the reader to sense that significant social changes for Maycomb are on the horizon, and those changes will bring the Finches a great deal of grief.

Through both the positive and negative qualities of the setting, along with creating both a playful and apprehensive mood, author Lee captures both a positive and negative tone as well. The term tone refers to the author's attitude toward the subject matter. Through the use of her negative symbols, Lee establishes a cynical tone that criticizes characters, like Mr. Avery, who hold racist beliefs. Through her use of positive symbols, Lee establishes a cheerful tone that rejoices in upcoming triumphant baby steps towards social justice while at the same time expresses the acceptance of others' differences, especially differences in opinions.