Calpurnia Dialect In To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee has depicted the separation between Caucasians and African-Americans in “To Kill a Mockingbird” by showcasing how White talk and African-American influences conduct between people of different races. For instance, when the children, Scout and Jem went to the church with Calpurnia, and they accessed the church. Subsequently, Harper Lee stated, ‘Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears. Meanwhile, Calpurnia said, “Now what if I talked white folks' talk at church, and with my neighbours? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses” (139). Specifically, Harper Lee stated, she “scratched her head,” referring to Calpurnia, Calpurnia didn’t know how to clearly explain why she utilized two dialects.

In relation to this, when Calpurnia exclaimed “I puttin’ on airs to beat Moses,” the author described how if Calpurnia conversed with her congregation members in normal English, the church members would assume that Calpurnia is better than them, so she wanted to resemble the African-American community in the town of Maycomb. Thus, she would preserve adequate relations with members of her race. Transitioning back to chapter 2, Calpurnia exclaimed, "She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible beneath. If I reproduced her penmanship satisfactorily”(20). Harper Lee used the word “Alphabet” to showcase that Calpurnia was teaching Scout original English, and thus, Calpurnia has a high literacy proficiency. “A chapter of the bible” symbolizes the conservative christian beliefs that were represented in the South during that time period, so Calpurnia also understands how to teach components of White education and Caucasian