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Why don't Atticus and Aunt Alexandra attend the Halloween pageant?
Quick answer:
Atticus and Aunt Alexandra do not attend the Halloween pageant because Atticus is exhausted after returning from a week in Montgomery and feels too tired to attend. Aunt Alexandra is also too fatigued from spending the afternoon decorating the stage for the event. Therefore, Jem escorts Scout to the pageant instead. Their absence is significant as it leads to the children being attacked by Bob Ewell on their way home, a pivotal event in the story.
In chapter 27, Scout mentions that the local ladies decided to hold a Halloween festival at the high school auditorium instead of having regular trick-or-treat, where the local children would travel door-to-door collecting candy. During the Halloween festival, Mrs. Merriweather thought it would be a good idea to have a pageant, where the local children would dress up and represent the various agricultural products grown and raised in Maycomb. Scout plays the role of a ham and is required to wear a cumbersome costume made out of chicken wire when she walks onto the stage. Scout mentions that she was upset to learn that her family members could not attend the pageant to see her perform. Scout explains why Atticus and Aunt Alexandra would not be attending the pageant by saying,
Atticus said as tactfully as he could that he just didn’t think he could stand a pageant tonight, he was all in. He had been in Montgomery for a week and had come home late that afternoon. He thought Jem might escort me if I asked him. Aunt Alexandra said she just had to get to bed early, she’d been decorating the stage all afternoon and was worn out—she stopped short in the middle of her sentence (Lee, 257).
Jem ends up walking with Scout to the high school for the Halloween festival and on their walk back, they are attacked by Bob Ewell. Fortunately, Boo Radley intervenes and saves the children's lives.
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