95 Fun Facts About To Kill a Mockingbird

What is the name of the fictional Alabama town where To Kill a Mockingbird is set?

Maycomb is the fictional town, and it still draws readers from around the world to Lee's real hometown, Monroeville.

What is the real first name of Scout, the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Jean Louise is her name, and at a family Christmas she beats up her relative Francis after he insults Atticus.

Which member of the Finch household is a Black cook who has helped raise the children for years?

Calpurnia helps raise the children, and at her church Scout is startled to hear her speak one way at the Finch home and another among her Black neighbours.

What is the nickname of Charles Baker Harris, the boy who visits each summer?

Dill is Charles Baker Harris, the summer visitor from Meridian, Mississippi, who one night runs away from home and hides under Scout's bed.

Which famous writer was the real-life model for Dill?

Truman Capote, born Truman Persons, spent childhood summers next door to Harper Lee in Alabama, living with his mother's relatives; Lee drew the character of Dill from him.

What is the first name of the reclusive neighbour known as "Boo" Radley?

Arthur Radley, shut indoors for years and the subject of the children's scary rumours, turns out to be the man who saves them from their attacker.

Who is Atticus Finch appointed to defend in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Tom Robinson is convicted by an all-white jury despite a strong defence, and he is later shot dead while trying to escape from prison.

Which To Kill a Mockingbird character pretends to be a drunk so white townsfolk can explain his life with a Black family?

Dolphus Raymond carries a paper sack that seems to hold liquor, but he lets the children in on his secret: it's only Coca-Cola.

How does Scout break up the lynch mob outside the jail?

By chatting to a classmate's father, Mr. Cunningham, Scout moves him so much that he leads the would-be lynchers home.

From where do Jem and Scout watch the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The colored balcony is where Reverend Sykes seats them, and from there they watch the all-white jury convict the defendant.

Which animal must Atticus Finch shoot in the street in To Kill a Mockingbird?

A rabid dog comes down the street, and the children are stunned when Atticus drops it, though Miss Maudie says he was once the county's best shot.

Which elderly neighbour fighting a morphine addiction gives Jem a lesson in courage?

Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose makes Scout's brother read to her every afternoon as punishment for wrecking her camellias; she dies free of morphine, which their father calls real courage.

After the trial, who vows revenge and spits in Atticus's face?

Bob Ewell, the accuser's father, spits in the lawyer's face and swears revenge; he later prowls around Judge Taylor's house and harasses the dead defendant's widow, Helen.

Jem and Scout are attacked while walking home from what event?

A school pageant on Halloween night is the event, and the wire ham costume Scout wears home keeps her from seeing much of the attack.

What injury does Jem suffer in the attack?

Jem suffers a fractured arm and is knocked unconscious, and the man who carries him home turns out to be Boo Radley.

How does Sheriff Tate report the attacker's death to protect Boo?

He fell on his own knife, Tate insists, so the shy man who saved the children never has to face a trial or the town's attention.

Why, as Miss Maudie explains to Scout, is it a sin to kill a mockingbird?

They just sing for people's enjoyment, and at the end Scout compares punishing Boo to killing a mockingbird.

Where did Harper Lee take the surname Finch from?

Her mother's maiden name was Finch, yet Lee insisted To Kill a Mockingbird was not an autobiography.

Besides practicing law, Harper Lee's father, the model for Atticus, also served in which body?

The Alabama State Legislature was one of his posts, and he hoped Harper would join his law firm like her sister Alice, but she left to write.

Scholars link To Kill a Mockingbird's trial to which notorious real-life case?

The Scottsboro Boys were convicted again and again by all-white Alabama juries, even after one of their accusers took back her story.

Which actor originated the role of Atticus Finch in the 2018 Broadway adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Jeff Daniels originated the role, and when Broadway reopened after the pandemic shutdown, he came back to play Atticus again.

Which award did To Kill a Mockingbird win in 1961?

The Pulitzer Prize went to a book Lee had expected to die 'a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers.'

In a 1964 interview, Lee said she aspired to be the Jane Austen of which place?

Lee told Roy Newquist in 1964 that all she wanted was to be 'the Jane Austen of south Alabama', a chronicler of small-town life in her own corner of the state.

Which US president awarded Harper Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007?

President George W. Bush presented Harper Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House on 5 November 2007, citing the novel's influence on American character.

Go Set a Watchman, published in 2015, was what in relation to To Kill a Mockingbird?

An earlier draft, it was first promoted by its publisher as a sequel before readers learned it had been written before To Kill a Mockingbird.

The title Go Set a Watchman comes from which book of the Bible?

Isaiah 21:6 supplies the title, and that novel shows a grown-up Scout discovering that Atticus defends segregation.

Who played Atticus Finch in the 1962 film of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Gregory Peck won the Best Actor Oscar for the role, and he and Lee became so close that his grandson Harper is named after her.

Which future star made his big-screen debut as Boo Radley in the 1962 film?

Robert Duvall made his film debut as the silent Boo Radley in 1962; he stayed out of the sun for six weeks and dyed his hair blond to look as though he had never left the house.

Who directed the 1962 film of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Robert Mulligan directed it, and it was shot in Hollywood because Monroeville, Lee's hometown, had changed too much since the Depression.

Who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1962 film?

Horton Foote won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 1962 film, one of its three Oscars from eight nominations; the others were Best Actor and Best Art Direction.

In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch what?

The greatest movie hero of the 20th century, AFI said, though legal scholar Monroe Freedman faulted Atticus for going along with Jim Crow.

Which composer wrote the film's celebrated score, recorded three separate times?

Elmer Bernstein composed the score, which opens with a child's halting piano theme; he received an Oscar nomination for it and re-recorded it in 1977 and 1996.

Which screenwriter wrote the Broadway adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird that opened in 2018?

Aaron Sorkin's play opened at the Shubert Theatre, and its producers' claim to exclusive stage rights forced a UK tour of an older adaptation to cancel.

Harper Lee studied law at which university before leaving for New York to write?

The University of Alabama is where she studied law, mostly to please her father, before she left in 1949 to write in New York.

Which best-selling true-crime book did Harper Lee help a childhood friend research?

In Cold Blood's author brought Lee along to Kansas to help win the confidence of the locals he needed to interview.

What was Harper Lee's first name, which she dropped for publication?

Nelle, her grandmother's name spelled backward, was left off the cover because Lee feared readers would say 'Nellie'.

Which two literary categories do scholars use to describe To Kill a Mockingbird?

Southern Gothic and Bildungsroman both fit, though some early reviewers doubted a child like Scout could grasp the story's complexities.

Where does Boo Radley leave small gifts for Jem and Scout to find?

In a tree's knothole, until his brother fills the hole with cement and the gifts stop.

Which formidable relative moves in with the Finches during the summer of the trial?

Aunt Alexandra arrives to give Scout a 'feminine influence' and tries to shape the tomboy into a proper Southern lady, much to Scout's resentment.

Which day job did Harper Lee hold for years in New York before To Kill a Mockingbird?

Airline reservation clerk was her job, so she did her writing at night and in her spare time.

Why does Miss Caroline, Scout's first-grade teacher, scold her on the first day?

She already knows how to read, and Atticus later tells Scout to climb into Miss Caroline's skin and see things from her point of view.

In 2017, which Mississippi city's school district pulled To Kill a Mockingbird from its eighth-grade lessons?

Biloxi School District dropped it after complaints that some of its language made people uncomfortable.

Which child actress played Scout in the 1962 film of To Kill a Mockingbird and earned an Oscar nomination?

Mary Badham earned the nomination but left acting as a teenager and later became an art restorer.

Who wrote the stage adaptation that has played in Monroeville every May since 1990?

Christopher Sergel's 1970 adaptation is the version Monroeville's amateur Mockingbird Players have staged each spring since 1990, moving the trial into the old courthouse and seating audience members as the jury.

What did the entire graduating class do when Lee received an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame in 2006?

The next year President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Which food is Scout dressed as on the Halloween night she is attacked in To Kill a Mockingbird?

A ham made of chicken wire and brown cloth is her costume, and embarrassment keeps her in it for the walk home. The stiff frame saves her life.

Town legend in To Kill a Mockingbird says Boo Radley stabbed his father's leg with which household object?

Scissors were in his hand because he was cutting articles out of the newspaper, and the story says he then calmly went back to his clipping.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus says to understand a person you must climb into what and walk around in it?

His skin, Atticus says, when Scout comes home furious with her new teacher Miss Caroline: he wants her to see the day from the teacher's side before she judges.

The 1962 film of To Kill a Mockingbird lost the Best Picture Oscar to which epic starring Peter O'Toole?

Lawrence of Arabia took Best Picture among its seven Oscars that night, yet the star playing Atticus Finch still beat Peter O'Toole to Best Actor.

To Kill a Mockingbird unfolds over three years of which hard era, when a farmer pays Atticus in firewood?

The Great Depression frames the story, which runs from 1933 to 1935. Cash is so scarce that one boy in Scout's class refuses a quarter for lunch, knowing he could never pay it back.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, which drink is really in the paper bag a supposed drunk sips from?

Coca-Cola is all he drinks. The drunk act hands white neighbours a reason they can accept for a wealthy landowner choosing to live among Black families.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, what does Boo Radley slip around Scout's shoulders as she watches a house burn?

A blanket appears on her shoulders without her feeling a thing, and only at home do the children work out who put it there. The feared recluse has been quietly looking after them.

How does the man Atticus Finch defends in To Kill a Mockingbird die before any appeal is heard?

Shot while fleeing prison, he is hit seventeen times by the guards. Atticus had been hopeful of getting the verdict overturned.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo Radley leaves tiny likenesses of Scout and her brother carved from what?

Soap is the material, carved so artfully that the children soon see the boy and girl are images of themselves. Until then their neighbour had existed for them only as a frightening rumour.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Miss Gates condemns which dictator's persecution yet shares her town's prejudice?

Adolf Hitler is the villain of her lesson, yet Scout has overheard the same teacher say after the trial that the town's Black residents needed to be taught a lesson.

Which Christmas presents lead Atticus Finch to warn his children that killing a mockingbird is a sin?

Air rifles are the gifts, though Atticus leaves the shooting lessons to the children's Uncle Jack, a doctor who is staying with the family for a week that Christmas.

Atticus Finch tells his children they may shoot all of which birds they want, but never a mockingbird?

Blue jays are fair game in his warning, which sends a puzzled Scout across the street to ask a neighbour why the other bird is off limits.

What do the Finch children build in To Kill a Mockingbird that looks so like Mr. Avery it must be disguised?

A snowman is the culprit, packed from soil and the first snow the children have ever seen. Miss Maudie's hat and pruning shears turn it into a likeness she laughs at.

Which flowers does Scout's brother behead with her baton after an elderly neighbour insults Atticus Finch?

Camellias fall to the baton, and his penance is a month of reading aloud at the old woman's bedside. After she dies, a candy box arrives for him holding one last bloom.

Which classic novel does Scout's brother read aloud to a dying neighbour as punishment in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Ivanhoe fills each afternoon until an alarm clock rings, a little later every day. The readings were quietly distracting the old woman while she broke a morphine addiction.

What does Scout's brother lose fleeing the Radley yard, then find mended and folded, in To Kill a Mockingbird?

His pants snag as he scrambles out with a shotgun blast behind him. When he creeps back that night they are folded, the tears crudely sewn, as if someone knew he would return.

Which Christmas gift from friends in 1956 freed Harper Lee to write To Kill a Mockingbird full-time?

A year's wages came with a note telling her she had one year off from her job to write whatever she pleased. She had found a literary agent only the month before.

Which keepsake of her father's did Harper Lee give the actor who played Atticus Finch on screen?

A pocket watch was her gift, and he had it with him the night he won the Oscar for Best Actor. Years later it was stolen from his luggage at Heathrow Airport.

How did the mother of Scout Finch die when the To Kill a Mockingbird narrator was just two?

A heart attack took her so early that Scout has no memories of her at all. Her older brother does remember, and Scout notices he is sometimes nostalgic for their mother.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus has Mayella's father sign his name in court to reveal what?

He is left-handed, and only the right side of Mayella's face was injured, just where a left-handed man's blows would land.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, which reason for helping Mayella with chores stuns the white courtroom?

He felt sorry for her, the accused says, and the courtroom stirs: for a Black man to pity a white woman broke the town's unspoken racial code.

Which piece of furniture does Mayella say she asked a passing man to chop up in To Kill a Mockingbird?

A chiffarobe, an old chest of drawers, was to become kindling for a nickel. The accused agrees he once broke one up for her, but says it was months before the day in question.

What does the town's Black community leave at the Finch house the morning after the To Kill a Mockingbird verdict?

Gifts of food fill the house: chickens, bread and produce. Atticus's eyes fill with tears, and he asks that nobody give him such things when times are so hard.

Who secretly covers Atticus Finch with a shotgun from a window during To Kill a Mockingbird's jailhouse standoff?

Mr. Underwood, owner of the town newspaper, reveals himself only once the men have gone. Atticus later notes that he despises Black people yet stood guard anyway.

Whose house does a prowler target one night after the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird, in an act of revenge?

Judge Taylor glimpses the prowler's shadow at the corner of his house while reading alone, then carries on with his book, a shotgun now across his lap.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, which old nickname marks Atticus as the best marksman his county ever had?

One-Shot Finch is the name Miss Maudie recalls, adding that he gave up shooting because he felt a gun gave him an unfair advantage over living things.

Which neighbour of the Finch family is the town's chief source of gossip in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Miss Stephanie Crawford carries every rumour in town. After a fire leaves Miss Maudie homeless, the two end up under one roof, though Miss Maudie speaks to her caustically.

Where in the Finch house does Scout find her runaway summer friend hiding in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Under her bed is where he turns up, after Scout feels something there and fears a snake. He had taken money from his mother's purse and hitched his way to the house.

The man Atticus Finch defends in To Kill a Mockingbird is falsely accused of which crime?

Rape of a young white woman is the charge, and Atticus shows the court that his client's accusers are lying. The jury convicts him regardless.

What does Scout's brother mistakenly call her teacher's modern classroom method in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The Dewey Decimal System is his muddle: he confuses the library catalogue with the new educational theories of the philosopher John Dewey.

What does Walter Cunningham pour all over his meat and vegetables at the Finch table in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Molasses drowns the whole plate, and when Scout rudely asks what he is doing she is taken to the kitchen for a lecture on how to treat a guest.

What crawls out of a classmate's hair and makes Scout's teacher scream in To Kill a Mockingbird?

A louse, or "cootie", is the culprit. Its host turns up only on the first day of each school year, and he leaves the teacher in tears before he goes.

Which treat is the first of Boo Radley's secret gifts that Scout finds in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Chewing gum, two pieces of it, catches her eye as she runs home from school. She chews it until her brother makes her spit it out.

What is the name of the Black church Scout attends with the family cook in To Kill a Mockingbird?

First Purchase has no hymnbooks, since only a few of its members can read. A leader reads out each line and the congregation sings it back.

Which flowers does Mayella tend in jars beside the town dump in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Geraniums, bright red ones, are the best-kept living things on the whole property. They hint at a wish for a little beauty in a home that has none.

What does Atticus Finch carry from home to keep watch outside the jail in To Kill a Mockingbird?

A light bulb on a cord lets him sit reading outside the door until four old cars roll into town and a group of men gets out.

Where did the teenage Boo Radley and his friends lock up Mr. Conner in To Kill a Mockingbird?

In an outhouse, and Mr. Conner took the boys to court for it. He added a charge of abusive language, sure that every lady in town had heard them cussing.

From which law book did the Finch family's cook learn to read in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Blackstone's Commentaries was her primer, taught by Miss Maudie's aunt. She went on to teach her own son, one of only four people in their church who can read.

Go Set a Watchman was Amazon's most pre-ordered book since the final novel in which series?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows set the mark in 2007. For Lee's novel, bookshops arranged all-night openings from midnight to cope with the expected demand.

What did a frustrated Harper Lee do with her To Kill a Mockingbird manuscript one winter night?

Threw it out a window and into the snow, then phoned her editor in tears. She was told to march outside immediately and pick up the pages.

Harper Lee said she had hoped To Kill a Mockingbird would meet which fate at the hands of reviewers?

A quick, merciful death was all she expected. The flood of public encouragement that came instead, she said, was just about as frightening.

Which Southern writer sniffed that buyers of To Kill a Mockingbird didn't know they were reading a child's book?

Flannery O'Connor allowed that "for a child's book it does all right", adding that somebody ought to say what it is.

In which state did a 1966 school board move to ban To Kill a Mockingbird, prompting Harper Lee's wry $10 donation?

Virginia's Hanover County board was holding hearings when Lee sent the money to a Richmond newspaper, to enrol its members "in any first grade of its choice".

Which screen star turned down the film role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, fearing controversy?

James Stewart passed, concerned that the story was too controversial. The studio also offered the part to Rock Hudson before the producer held out for a bigger star.

Where was the small-town street for the 1962 film of To Kill a Mockingbird actually built?

On a Hollywood backlot, because Harper Lee's hometown had changed too much since the 1920s. The courthouse set was so accurate that many Alabamians believed the film was shot there.

In the novel Go Set a Watchman, an older Atticus Finch dismayed many readers by favouring what?

Segregation gets his support in that book. A grown Scout secretly follows him to a Citizens' Council meeting, watches in horror and flees the hall.

Which actor played the accused man in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and later gave the eulogy for its star?

Brock Peters spoke at the 2003 funeral, quoting Harper Lee's line that Atticus Finch gave the star an opportunity to play himself.

Inside what does Scout accidentally roll into the Radley yard in To Kill a Mockingbird?

An old tire carries her there after her brother pushes it too hard. She runs home without it, sure she heard someone laughing inside the house.

On a dare in To Kill a Mockingbird, what does Scout's brother finally do to the Radley house?

Run up and touch it is all he dares, and only after three days of hedging. Back on their own porch, the children think they see an inside shutter move.

Which studio first offered the role of Atticus Finch to Rock Hudson for its film of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Universal made the offer while the project was first being developed, but producer Alan J. Pakula wanted a bigger star for the part.