Miss Maudie Atkinson Essay

Harper Lee, author of the novel ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, presents Miss Maudie Atkinson with a matter-of-fact personality. For example, when Miss Stephanie Crawford spreads rumours about Boo Radley looking in her window at night, she asks “What did you do, Stephanie, move over in the bed and make room for him?” By referring to Miss Stephanie Crawford simply as “Stephanie”, she reveals that she has no time for social differences, which highlights her realistic nature. She is effective in her use of sarcasm, as she embarrasses the gossiper into unusual silence; Scout states “Miss Maudie’s voice was enough to shut anyone up”. It also displays a sense of protectiveness towards Boo Radley, as by refusing to allow people to spread gossip about

The word “tactic” implies that the children intended to gain something from their alliance which was the free run of her backyard and permission to eat her home-grown grapes, which she would probably have made into wine. This suggests to the reader that although she is an elderly spinster, she is truly empathetic towards the children, as she has the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, as she realised that the children needed space to run off their energy. As a result, the reader feels that she is young at heart regardless of her physical age and

By holding Scout’s hand, Miss Maudie effectively restrained her from giving a rude reply to Miss Stephanie, and instead gave a polite, lady-like answer. This links to Miss Maudie being motherly to motherless Scout, as she won’t let anyone make fun of her ‘child’ and strives to teach her to grow up to be a benefit to Maycombe. Miss Maudie’s benevolence extended to Jem and Dill, possibly because they are essentially motherless too, as Jem’s had died when he was young and Dill’s had remarried and so he spent each summer staying with his aunt, Miss Rachel. This is evident, as when Miss Maudie baked, she made “one big one and three little ones”, which effectively brought the children closer to her and made them feel wanted, and privileged to think that someone actually bothered to make them as separate cake each. Lee successfully uses this to show that Miss Maudie is genuinely kind, and is caring of those around her, particularly the