School Again — Hitler and Hypocrisy

TL;DR: Scout, third grade. Miss Gates leads a current-events lecture on Hitler's persecution of the Jews and explains that democracy means equal rights for all and special privileges for none. Scout remembers, with sudden cold, that she has heard this same teacher on the courthouse steps the night of the verdict saying it was "time somebody taught 'em a lesson." She asks Jem about the contradiction. Jem cannot bear to discuss the trial and sends her away.

Spoilers through Chapter 26.

Chapter in one sentence

A small girl sits at her school desk listening to her teacher condemn Hitler's persecution of the Jews, and realizes — without saying it — that the same teacher recently agreed Tom Robinson should burn.

What happens

School starts again. Scout is in third grade, Jem in seventh. Atticus is more visible in public — he is running for the state legislature again, unopposed. The children pass the Radley Place daily; the legend is fainter to them now. Scout sometimes wishes she could see Boo just once.

Her teacher, Miss Gates, leads a current-events lesson about Nazi Germany. She explains that the Jews are being persecuted for being different and that "democracy" means "equal rights for all, special privileges for none." Scout absorbs the language carefully. After class she remembers, with sudden cold, hearing Miss Gates on the courthouse steps the night of the verdict, telling Miss Stephanie Crawford "it's time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themselves."

Scout asks Jem about the contradiction. Jem snaps at her — he cannot bear to talk about the trial — and tells her never to mention it again. Atticus, downstairs, comforts her: "Jem will get over this. He's not himself right now."

Key moments

• Scout's daily passing of the Radley Place — wishing once to see Boo
• The third-grade classroom and Miss Gates's lecture on Hitler and democracy
• Scout's flashback to Miss Gates on the courthouse steps the night of the verdict
• Scout asking Jem about the contradiction; Jem's outburst
• Atticus quietly explaining to Scout, in the kitchen, that Jem is still processing

Character shifts

Scout has, in this chapter, made a connection that the adults around her are unable or unwilling to make: the same teacher who condemns Hitler's persecution of the Jews approves of Maycomb's persecution of Tom Robinson. The book is asking us to notice that Scout is still building the moral framework Atticus has been laying for her since Chapter 3 — and that, two months after the trial, she can do something with that framework her seventh-grade brother cannot.

Jem, by contrast, is doing his own honest grieving — he cannot bear to talk about the trial. The book does not punish him for this. Atticus's explanation — that Jem is not himself right now — is one of the book's quietest moments of parental insight.

Why it matters

The chapter is the book's argument that the trial has not ended for Scout, that it has just moved into her ordinary daily life. She is now seeing her own town through the lens the trial gave her. The Miss Gates contradiction is one of the most carefully constructed moral set pieces in the novel — Lee never has Scout name it explicitly; the reader has to make the connection alongside her. The book trusts the reader to do it. It is part of how Lee builds Scout's moral education: through small juxtapositions that the narrator notices without commenting on.

Themes to notice

• Hypocrisy at the level of unconscious daily speech — Miss Gates does not see her own contradiction
• The trial's long aftermath: months later, the moral education the case began is still ongoing
• Jem's grief versus Scout's quieter processing
• Atticus's compassion for Jem — "he's not himself right now" — as one of the book's most generous lines of parenting

Book club questions

• Scout does not name the Miss Gates contradiction out loud. She asks Jem, gets shut down, and lets it lie. What is the book asking the reader to do with the silence?
• Why does Lee place this scene in Chapter 26 — months after the trial — rather than immediately after the verdict?
• Jem cannot bear to talk about the trial. Scout, who was in the same balcony for the same trial, can. What does the book want us to do with that difference?
• Miss Gates is a competent teacher. She is also the woman who said what she said on the courthouse steps. Is the book asking us to think of her as one kind of person or two?

Visual memory hook

A quiet gray Radley house with a cement-scarred oak. A small girl at a school desk with her hand half raised. A teacher in a print dress pointing at a map of Europe pinned to a blackboard. A brother walking ahead of his sister down a Maycomb sidewalk, refusing to talk.

What's next

Bob Ewell, Helen Robinson, Judge Taylor, the Halloween pageant. The road home from the schoolhouse.