![]() ![]() Jem abandons his sister to schmooze with the adults, leaving Scout to deal with the dreaded Francis-whose main problem so far seems to be liking boring Christmas presents.They head down to Finch's Landing, sans air rifles (to Scout's dismay, as she'd already had fantasies about shooting Francis).The next day is Christmas morning, and they open the mysterious packages to find a pair of long-desired air rifles.Scout cusses while Uncle Jack's around, and later he tells her that she shouldn't do that if she wants to grow up to be a lady (which she doesn't).Uncle Jack arrives with two long packages of mysterious contents.Even worse, it means having to spend time with Aunt Alexandra's grandson Francis, who is the yin to Scout’s yang.Soon it's Christmas, which means a visit from Uncle Jack (good), but also a visit from Aunt Alexandra (bad).The next day at school, Scout is about to fight Cecil Jacobs when she remembers what Atticus told her and walks away instead, even though she gets called a coward.Atticus reassures Scout: "But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home" (9.27).Is he going to win the case? No, but they have to try anyway.For him, it boils down to self-respect: he couldn't hold his head up if he did less than his best.See, just because lawyers have black clients doesn't mean they actually do a good job at defending them.So why does Cecil make it sound worse than bootlegging (booze, not music)? Atticus tries to explain to Scout the complexities of race relations in Maycomb.Scout then asks him if all lawyers defend N****es, and he says that of course they do.When Scout asks Atticus about it, he tells her not to say "n*****.".See the "Speech and Dialogue" section in " Tools of Characterization" for a fuller explanation of how this term functions in the book.) (This is the word the book uses, so we'll use it here, despite its history of offensiveness.Scout is ready to fight Cecil Jacobs on the schoolyard when he says that her father defends "n*****" (9.3). ![]()
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