" /> Miss Maudie Atkinson Quotes, Analysis: To Kill a Mockingbird

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Pride and Prejudice
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet
Of Mice and Men
Frankenstein

Miss Maudie Atkinson Quotes

Our tacit treaty with Miss Maudie was that we could play on her lawn, eat her scuppernongs if we didn’t jump on the arbor, and explore her vast back lot, terms so generous we seldom spoke to her, so careful were we to preserve the delicate balance of our relationship, but Jem and Dill drove me closer to her with their behavior.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Scout tells of the friendly relationship she and Jem have with neighbor Miss Maudie. Miss Maudie cares for them, inviting them to play in her garden and baking cakes for them to eat.

She was a widow, a chameleon lady, who work in her flower beds in an old straw hat and men’s coveralls, but after her five o’clock bath she would appear on the porch and reign over the street in magisterial beauty.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Scout describes Miss Maudie in glowing and dignified terms.

Miss Maudie hated her house: time spent indoors was time wasted…She loved everything that grew in God’s earth, even the weeds.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Miss Maudie thought that any time spent in doors was time wasted. She preferred to be gardening and out in nature.

Her speech was crisp for a Maycomb County inhabitant. She called us by all our names, and when she grinned she revealed two minute gold prongs clipped to her eyeteeth. When I admired them and hoped I would have some eventually, she said, “Look here.” With a click of her tongue she thrust out her bridgework, a gesture of cordiality that cemented our friendship.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Scout likes the fact that neighbor Miss Maudie calls the children by their names and treats them with respect. Scout is very impressed that Miss Maudie can remove her partial denture and this helps to cement their friendship.

Every time she baked she made a big cake and three little ones, and she would call across the street: “Jem Finch, Scout Finch, Charles Baker Harris, come here!” Our promptness was always rewarded.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Miss Maudie is one of the most thoughtful and sensitive people in the novel. As part of her benevolence she baked cakes for the children.

We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Maude would yell back, “Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they’ll hear you the post office, I haven’t heard you yet!” Jem and I thought this a strange way to ask for a lady’s hand in marriage, but then again Uncle Jack was rather strange.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Uncle Jack and Miss Maudie had known one another since they were childen and liked to tease each other. He by shouting a marriage proposal to her at Christmas, she by yelling back loudly in a bid to embarrass him.

He said he was trying to get Miss Maudie’s goat, that he had been trying unsuccessfully for forty years, that he was the last person in the world that Miss Maudie would think about marrying but the first person she thought about teasing.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Uncle Jack and Miss Maudie had no intention of marrying each other, but they engaged in a playful, teasing banter about it.

Jem and I had considerable faith in Miss Maudie. She had never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in our private lives. She was our friend.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Scout is appreciative of Miss Maudie’s friendship.

To Kill a Mockingbird Bible and Whiskey bottle quote

“You are too young to understand it…but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of – oh, of your father.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Miss Maudie Atkinson to Scout. She is suggesting that sometimes religion in the hands of the wrong person can do more harm than a whiskey bottle in the hands of a good man such as Scout’s father Atticus.

“There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Miss Maudie Atkinson to Scout about religious fanatacism. She is talking about Boo Radley’s father and his foot-washing Baptists who consider any type of pleasure to be a sin and even criticize Maudie for working in her garden to make it pretty. The hypocrisy of being outwardly religious but not showing compassion is one of the novel’s themes.

“Stephanie Crawford even told me she woke up in the middle of the night and found him looking in the window at her. I said what did you do, Stephanie, move over in the bed and make room for him? That shut her up a while.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Miss Maudie provides Scout with an example of some of the gossip that is spread about Boo Radley. Especially by Stephanie Crawford, a fountain of unfounded rumors about the Radley family. Miss Maudie thinks her words are ridiculous. Scout points out that Stephanie Crawford goes about the neighborhood “doing good,” which makes her rather hypocritical.

“No, child,” she said, “that is a sad house. I remember Arthur Radley when he was a boy. He always spoke nicely to me, no matter what folks said he did. Spoke as nicely as he knew how.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Miss Maudie to Scout. Just like Atticus, Miss Maudie makes up her own mind about people based on the facts, rather than listening to gossip, which in the case of Boo Radley is wildly exaggerated.

“The things that happen to people we will never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets – “

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Miss Maudie to Scout. She tries to explain how the reclusive Boo Radley feels after being secluded in the house for so long. Boo was locked up in his childhood home by his abusive father, who hypocritically in public was religious and “a foot-washing Baptist.” Boo is viewed as a strange and frightening figure by the children.

Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets - To Kill a Mockingbird quote

“Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 5. Atticus’s longtime friend Miss Maudie tells Scout that about one of the things she admires about her father. She is making the point that Atticus always acts the same way whether other people can see him or not. He is the same on the street as he is in the house. One of those constantly authentic people who has nothing to hide, there is nothing fake or two-faced about him, what you see is what you get. He stands out in stark contrast to some of the people in Maycomb who practice hypocrisy.

Atticus strolled over to Miss Maudie’s sidewalk, where they engaged in an arm-waving conversation, the only phrase of which I caught was “…erected an absolute morphodite in that yard! Atticus, you’ll never raise ’em!”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 8. Miss Maudie yells this when she sees Jem’s snowman creation. Morphodite is a slang term for a person with male and female reproductive organs. When Atticus asked Jem to alter the snowman because it looked like neighbor Mr. Avery, he changed it to resemble Miss Maudie.

I saw Atticus carrying Miss Maudie's heavy oak rocking chair - Harper Lee

I saw Atticus carrying Miss Maudie’s heavy oak rocking chair, and thought it sensible of him to save what she valued most.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 8. When Miss Maudie’s house goes on fire in the middle of the night, the neighbors including Atticus come to the rescue to save some of her furniture. Scout sees Atticus take out her heavy rocking chair, because he knows it is her most valued possession. This shows the close the close bond of friendship that exists in the community, with neighbors looking out for one another in times of need.

“Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more yard. Just think, I’ll have more room for my azaleas now!”
“You ain’t grievin’, Miss Maudie?” I asked, surprised. Atticus said her house was nearly all she had.
“Grieving, child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of settin’ fire to it a hundred times myself, except they’d lock me up.”
“…Don’t you worry about me, Jean Louise Finch. There are ways of doing things you don’t know about. Why, I’ll build me a little house and take me a couple of roomers and – gracious, I’ll have the finest yard in Alabama. Those Bellingraths’ll look plain puny when I get started.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 8. When Miss Maudie’s entire house burns down she courageously looks on the bright side and shows Jem and Scout how to face adversity.

Miss Maudie puzzled me. With most of her possessions gone and her beloved yard a shambles, she still took a lively and cordial interest in Jem’s and my affairs.
“Only thing I worried about last night was all the danger and commotion it caused. This whole neighborhood could have gone up.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 8. Miss Maudie, after losing her house in a fire, is a great example for Scout and Jem of courage and strength in the face of adversity.

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. The Finches neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson offers this wisdom to Scout who queries her father’s instruction to Jem not to shoot his air rifle at mockingbirds. Mockingbirds are innocents that must be protected.

“You’re lucky, you know. You and Jem have the benefit of your father’s age. If your father was thirty you’d find life quite different.”
“I sure would. Atticus can’t do anything…”
“You’d be surprised,” said Miss Maudie. “There’s life in him yet.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. Miss Maudie to Scout, who is angry because Atticus, a man in his fifties, cannot play with her and Jem.

“People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. Miss Maudie says this to Scout after Atticus shoots a rabid dog and Scout and Jem are shocked to learn their father is the best shot in town but they never knew. Miss Maudie’s remarks are in response to Scout saying that Atticus should be proud. Atticus is a modest and humble man. The shooting of the mad dog could be seen as foreshadowing that Tom Robinson could meet the same fate.

If your father’s anything, he’s civilized in his heart. Marksmanship’s a gift of God, a talent – oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin’s different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn’t shoot till he had to, and he had to today.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. Miss Maudie tries to explain to Jem and Scout about Atticus’s excellent markmanship and why he shows a lack of pride in it. Instead of taking pride in being the best shot in Maycomb, he put the gun down and stopped hunting. Miss Maudie points out that this was because he felt he was a civilized man and refused to take advantage of weakness.

“Aren’t you goin’ down to watch?” asked Dill.
“I am not. ‘t’s morbid, watching a poor devil on trial for his life. Look at all those folks, it’s like a Roman carnival.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 16. Miss Maudie Atkinson is the female version of Atticus. She is more sensitive to Tom Robinson’s fate than those who are going to court to enjoy the spectacle of seeing a black man being tried for the rape of a white woman. To her Tom is a human being who deserves respect and to be treated as an equal during his time in court.

“Don’t fret, Jem. Things are never as bad as they seem.”
Indoors, when Miss Maudie wanted to say something lengthy she settled her fingers on her knees and settled her bridgework. This she did, and we waited.
“I simply wanted to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22. Atticus Finch has just lost the Tom Robinson trial and faces some isolation and backlash from his town. Neighbor Miss Maudie brings the children to her house for cake and offers them some encouragement and wisdom. She is one of the few locals who stands against racism and behind Atticus’s decision to defend Tom Robinson.

“We’re the safest folks in the world,” said Miss Maudie. “We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22. Miss Maudie Atkinson to Jem, upset by the Tom Robinson verdict and at the lack of support by Maycomb’s citizens for his father Atticus. She appears to be saying that many people hypocritically pretend to be Christian. But it is men like Atticus – not a great churchgoer but with high moral ideals – who step forward when needed the most.

“Did it ever strike you that Judge Taylor naming Atticus to defend that boy was no accident? That Judge Taylor might have had his reasons for naming him?”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22. Miss Maudie in reply to Jem, when he asks her to name another person who attempted to help Tom Robinson aside from Atticus. Judge Taylor gave Atticus the case because he knew he would do his best to defend Tom and convince the jury of his innocence.

“I waited and waited to see you all come down the sidewalk, and as I waited I thought, Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22. Miss Maudie to Jem and Scout, who are disappointed that Atticus lost the racism-driven Tom Robinson trial. She sees some hope that the community is taking “a babystep” against prejudice by the fact it took so long for the jury to reach a guilty verdict.

“For one thing, Miss Maudie can’t serve on a jury because she’s a woman – ”
“You mean women in Alabama can’t?” I was indignant.
“I do. I guess it’s to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s. Besides, I doubt if we’d ever get a complete case tried – the ladies be interrupting to ask questions.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 23. Atticus rather sarcastically explains to Scout why women aren’t allowed to serve on juries. Scout is against any form of inequality or gender prejudice and cannot see why women should not hold the same positions as men.

Miss Maudie’s gold bridgework twinkled. “You’re mighty dressed up, Miss Jean Louise,” she said, “Where are your britches today?”
“Under my dress.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 24. Scout is a tomboy. At Aunt Alexandra’s missionary tea she is forced to wear a dress and feels uncomfortable and ill at ease. So she wears her trousers underneath the dress so that she can still feel more like herself.

“His food doesn’t stick going down, does it?”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 24. Miss Maudie says this sarcastically to Mrs Merriweather in defense of Atticus during Aunt Alexandra’s missionary tea. Mrs Merriweather has been subtly criticizing Atticus for being misguided in defending black man Tom Robinson. She is a hypocrite in that she criticizes Atticus without naming him, in his own house, while eating the food and refreshments he rovided for the tea party. Miss Maudie, never afraid and courageously speaking her mind, lets her know she strongly disagrees with her.

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