To Kill a Mockingbird Calpurnia Quotes

“There’s some folks who don’t eat like us,” she whispered fiercely, “but you ain’t called on to contradict ’em at the table when they don’t. That boy’s yo’ comp’ny and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?”
“He ain’t company, Cal, he’s just a Cunningham – ”
“Hush your mouth! Don’t matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house’s yo’ comp’ny, and don’t you let me catch you remarkin’ on their ways like you was so high and mighty!”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 3. Calpurnia rebukes Scout, after Scout makes several rude comments that embarrass Walter Cunningham Jr. at the Finch meal table when he pours syrup all over his meal. Calpurnia wants Scout to show respect to guests at all times and not judge them for their unusual eating habits. She scolds Scout over her slur on farmer Walter Cunningham’s family, who are considered inferior by many locals.

“…what’s rape, Cal?”
“It’s somethin’ you’ll have to ask Mr. Finch about,” she said. “He can explain it better than I can.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 12. Scout’s question to Calpurnia is in reference to Tom Robinson being accused of raping Mayella Ewell. Calpurnia feels it is more appropriate for a parent to discuss a matter such as the violent crime of rape. Scout does in fact ask her father later on and he gives her a straight-forward explanation, another example of Atticus’s honest parenting in action.

“It’s right hard to say,” she said. “Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks’ talk at home it’d be out of place, wouldn’t it? Now what if I talked white-folks’ talk at church, and with my neighbors? They’d think I was puttin’ on airs to beat Moses.”
“But Cal, you know better,” I said.
“It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not ladylike – in the second place, folks don’t like to have someone around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ’em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 12. The Finch’s black cook Calpurnia is trying to tell the children that you have to speak the language that people understand and you can’t go round acting like you are better than anyone else. An educated woman, she speaks proper English in the Finch home, but when she is with the black people in her community and at her church she speaks the way they do. Here, she is telling Scout what it means to be ladylike.

Atticus’s voice was even: “Alexandra, Calpurnia’s not leaving this house until she wants to. You may think otherwise, but I couldn’t have got along without her all these years. She’s a faithful member of this family and you’ll simply have to accept things the way they are.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 14. Atticus defends Calpurnia against Aunt Alexandra, who doesn’t approve of a black woman raising Scout and wants him to get rid of her. He tells his sister that he will never tell Calpurnia to leave the house because she is essentially a member of the family.
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