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Alexandra's Comparability To A Sheet Of Glass In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Aunt Alexandra’s Comparability to a Sheet of Glass
In To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee often poses the character, Aunt Alexandra, in a way that can be associated with the characteristics of a sheet of glass, due to her traditional mindset/lifestyle and her unwillingness to accept change. Aunt Alexandra lives an undoubted conventional life and has a plain thought process. She believes that everything in life should be a certain way and everyone should behave as such. When Alexandra first moves into the Finch home, she informs the children of each family’s place in Maycomb and briefly talks about the town’s social history. While simplifying her aunt’s historic spiel, Scout narrates, “There was indeed a caste system in Maycomb, but to my mind it worked this way: the older citizens, the present generation of people who had lived side by side for years and years, were utterly predictable to one another: they took for granted attitudes, character shadings, even gestures, as having been repeated in each …show more content…

Scout’s understanding of Maycomb’s history reinforces the idea of Aunt Alexandra’s traditional life and her thought of everyone behaving a certain way. This quote explains how the people of Maycomb almost always follow a certain way of living that has been drawn out for them by earlier generations. It also states how predictable the citizens are to each other, hence Alexandra expecting a specific behaviour from people. To relate this idea back to the symbol, a sheet of glass is undeniably one of the most simple and traditional materials out there, just like the life of Aunt Alexandra. Glass sheets have also been used for the past five-thousand years which directly relates to the already-planned lifestyles in Maycomb, created by earlier generations. Since Aunt Alexandra has become so used to the lifestyle that she lives, she does not like and cannot accept change. She tries her best to stay clear of situations

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Aunt Alexandra’s relationship with Cal is also another example of how she supports segregation. In the text, Scout (Atticus’ daughter) finds out that Aunt Alexandra disapproved of him on the trail of defending a black man from her cousin Francis, “[Aunt Alexandra said that Atticus] turned out a nigger-lover and we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He's ruinin' the family, that's what he's doin'" (Lee 110). This demonstrates how ashamed she is that her brother is defending a black man and that she is scared of what other people will think. One more example that Aunt Alexandra supports segregation is that she is very concerned about the children and Cal’s relationship.

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In the book “To Kill A Mockingbird”, written by Harper Lee, things can change in the blink of an eye. It can go from a peaceful taciturn summer morning to all hell broken loose. And for Aunt Alexandra, change comes extremely faster then anyone would ever expect. She would be one of the most imprudent and disrespectful person anyone would know to a caring, respected person who wouldn't despise anyone by their skin or gender.

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Some readers may debate that Scout's Aunt Alexandra’s influences has a stronger effect on her, but those people might not take into account all of the negative effects she had on Scouts mentality. " Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's lonely life" (Lee 81). Aunt Alexandra constantly wanted Scout to be something she was not simply to fit into the typical southern woman mold.

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To begin, Aunt Alexandra aggressively imposes her views on how to be a lady. Scout talking about Aunt Alexandra’s idea of her wearing pants “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on

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Aunt Alexandra is a conservative woman who is conscious of propriety and class. So she wanted Jem and Scout to live in a certain way especially Scout, She was worried Scout was too much of a tomboy. Aunt Alexandra was also concerned that Atticus was too careless in his parenting. He allowed his kids to do whatever they wanted. She was also concerned that Calpurnia had too much say and authority over the lives of the children with the absence of their mother.

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The citizens viewed Aunt Alexandra as a real prim, proper lady as she had the characteristics the ladies were taught to have but could never master had they had no role model who exhibited these traits. Aunt Alexandra became the vision of a “perfect” lady, which goes to show how Maycomb lived when compared to Aunt Alexandra. Without this glimpse of perspective, the film lost an interesting take on how the ladies in Maycomb were expected to be. While Aunt Alexandra gave the reader a feeling of how Maycomb viewed ‘outsiders’, Aunt Alexandra also gave the reader insight as to how ‘outsiders’ viewed Maycomb. This is illustrated when Aunt Alexandra is discussing with Scout the ways of different citizens of Maycomb.

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I carefully picked up the tray and watched myself walk to Mrs. Merriweather. With my best company manners, I asked her if she would have some. After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.” This quote explains how Aunt Alexandra is telling Scout to copy what she does in order to look more lady-like and so that she can conform in to the society. Prejudice is another kind of conformity that is shown in the book “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

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These actions caused by the society advise Scout about people and the existence of Maycomb. For example, when Scout and Miss Maudie are discussing how some men were born to do undesirable jobs for the world, Scout says, “I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that’s what they seemed like” (218). Scout is definitely learning the shady elements in reality of Maycomb, from the undesirable jobs to unpleasant people, they come from cowards. Miss Maudie realizes how prejudice citizens are about colored citizens and others unreasonable assumptions. In addition, when Atticus was strolling by the Post Office, Bob Ewell approaches him and spat in his face after stating he would get him if it took him the rest of his life.

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Aunt Alexandra comes to Maycomb with the intent to become a matriarch in the Finch family and to lead them to a more traditional way of life. According to Scout, "Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my

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Structurally, the tone scout uses towards black citizens creates sort of a vision of what black men and women would look like in this time. Scout is speaking for all black men and women when she is saying this, since scout doesn’t know the truth behind all black citizens she can not say this, because she is not standing in these men and womens shoes which makes her sound just flat out ignorant. Stylistically, The repetition of the word “typical” helps follow through on the theme of ignorance. Since scout doesn’t live with the black people like Dolphus, she doesn’t know the way they “typically” act. The repetition of the word “typical” makes the reader think that she knows something more than normal white citizen of maycomb, but she doesn’t,

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To begin, Aunt Alexandra is one of the many voices of hypocrisy in the book. Aunt Alexandra is a symbol of old southern charm and what woman were supposed to act like in the 1930s. She lives by the fact that family is the most important thing in life. She judges

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