TL;DR: Atticus's older sister. Arrives at the Finch house in Part Two with a steamer trunk and a mission — to provide "a feminine influence" for Scout during the trial. Tries to get Calpurnia fired, lectures Scout on the proud Finch lineage, runs the Missionary Society circle. Also: the woman who very nearly breaks in the back hall when Atticus tells her Tom is dead.

Spoiler level: spoiler-light. Discusses her time in the Finch house through Tom's death and the Halloween-night response in broad strokes.

Snapshot

Aunt Alexandra is one of the most carefully drawn characters in the book — almost a parody of the southern matriarch on first read, and a much fuller human being on second. She is broad-bosomed, broad-hipped, tightly corseted, a believer in family and breeding, and the Maycomb Missionary Society's quiet center. She arrives in Chapter 13 and stays through the rest of the novel.

Role in the story

Alexandra is the imported authority of Part Two. She tries to reform Scout (the pink dotted-Swiss Sunday dress in Chapter 24 is her doing), demands that Atticus fire Calpurnia (he refuses, definitively), hosts the Missionary Society circle in Chapter 24, and is the one whose breakdown in the back hall — held up by Miss Maudie — is the book's most surprising moment of grace for her character. She is also the aunt who genuinely loves her brother and her niece and nephew, even when she cannot recognize that her love is at odds with what they need.

Personality in plain English

Formidable by reflex. Disciplinarian. An enthusiast of family lineage who can recite the Finch genealogy back to "Cousin Joshua" and the Battle of Hastings. Disapproves of Scout's overalls, of Calpurnia's continued employment, of Atticus's choice to put his full effort into the trial. Acts in public exactly the way she believes a Finch matriarch ought to act in public — and then, when no one she expects to see is looking, breaks for a moment and is held up by her diametric opposite.

What she wants

Scout in a dress. Jem to behave. Atticus to remember he is a Finch. Maycomb to continue thinking well of the family. The trial to be over so the household can return to ordinary order.

What she fears

Bob Ewell. She is the only person in the household who takes his post-trial threat seriously. She tells Atticus so, and is ignored.

Key relationships

• Atticus — her brother, with whom she disagrees frequently but politely. Their dinner-table arguments are the book's running portrait of two siblings who love each other and want different things for the same children.
• Scout — her niece and her reform project. The friction is the spine of Part Two; the truce is incremental.
• Jem — her nephew, on whom she gives up tactically and treats more like a small adult.
• Calpurnia — whom she would prefer to replace and cannot. The Chapter 14 disagreement with Atticus over Cal is one of the household's clearest moral lines.
• Miss Maudie — her unofficial peer in Maycomb, her diametric foil in values, and the woman who quietly holds her up in the back hall after Atticus brings the Tom-Robinson news.
• Francis (her grandson) and Uncle Jimmy (her husband) — visible mostly at Christmas at Finch's Landing in Chapter 9.

Visual identity

Broad-bosomed, broad-hipped, tightly corseted; solid but not fat. Looks "as if she had been born in her clothes." A broad squarish face, mid-height forehead, hair brushed back from a high straight hairline. Thin plucked-tidy brows in perpetual evaluation. Pale gray-blue Finch-family eyes, deep-set. Powdered fair skin, faint pink across the cheekbones; a small mole on the right side of the chin. A coral lipstick discreetly applied. Silver-streaked dove-gray hair in a controlled French twist or low chignon. A heavy cameo brooch is pinned at her throat in every public scene; pearl earrings; a single thin gold band on her left hand. Daily uniform: a fitted day dress in navy or dove gray, low heels, pearls, the brooch, a small clean handkerchief tucked into one cuff. Hostess apron over a softer dress for the Missionary Tea. Quilted dressing robe over a pastel nightgown for the Halloween night scenes — and notably, in those scenes, no brooch.

Aliases

The following names and references in the book all point to this character. Use any of these as link anchors back to this page.

• Aunt Alexandra (canonical — the most common form)
• Alexandra Finch Hancock
• Alexandra
• Aunty
• Sister (Atticus uses this in conversation with her)

Discussion questions

• Aunt Alexandra is sometimes read as the villain of the Finch household and sometimes as a clear-eyed protector. Which reading does the book ultimately reward?
• Alexandra is the only one in the family who takes Bob Ewell's threat seriously. Atticus dismisses it. What does the book want us to do with the fact that she is right and he is wrong?
• The back-hall vignette in Chapter 24 — Miss Maudie holding Alexandra up after she hears about Tom — is a tiny scene. What does it tell us about Alexandra that her on-stage scenes do not?
• Alexandra demands that Calpurnia be fired in Chapter 14, and Atticus refuses. Is that refusal more about Cal or more about who Atticus is trying to teach his children to be?
• Alexandra returns to the parlor and "passes plates as if nothing had happened" minutes after hearing of Tom's death. What is the book saying about her, and about Maycomb, with that single staged-recovery beat?