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To Kill a Mockingbird - The First Chapter


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             Scout uses phrases like 'tired old town' where 'people moved slowly' and 'took their time about everything', to describe Maycomb and it's people, having the desired effect of building up an image of Maycomb as small, laidback and slow paced. The fact that the children found Dill a 'curiosity' indicates how closed the town was, and how little interaction it had with people from outside. Dill is also familiar with 'picture shows' for children, as opposed to Scout and Jem who had only seen 'Jesus ones'. This further emphasizes how cut off Maycomb was from the rest of the world. Further, Scout talks about several families like they were clans with distinct and fixed identities. She says, 'but they were Haverfords', as if the title dictated the actions of the family. This is a recurring theme throughout the novel, and it highlights, once again, how closed even the individual families of Maycomb were. .
             In the opening chapter, the narrator also introduces all the main characters, the relationships that she shared with each of them and they shared with each other. She talks about the other characters as though the reader were already familiar with them and subtly weaves in their relationships with her into conversation, rather than stating them directly. She referred to her father as Atticus and found him 'satisfactory' indicating the sense of affection and comfort that they shared. Similarly, with Jem she shares a typical relationship as that between siblings, where Jem felt that 'he had his little sister to think of' every time he was scared, and Scout 'knew better than to bother him' when he was upset, where Scout was always bullied into playing insignificant roles during their role plays. This not only warms the readers' hearts but also makes them relate to the characters on a personal level. .
             Dill and Calpurnia are also introduced in this chapter itself.


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