EXAMPLES OF IRONY: Chapter
12, To Kill a
Mockingbird
The
Tapeworm. Scout questions Atticus if Jem may have a tapeworm, an
organism known for growing quickly and to incredible size. Atticus responds that it is
Jem who "was growing."
First Purchase Church.
The church, possibly the only in Maycomb specifically for African-Americans,
was purchased by the first group of freed black men in Maycomb, probably soon after the
end of the Civil War. It is nevertheless used by white men to gamble in on weekdays.
Additionally, Reverend Sykes warns his congregation about gambling during the
service.
Reverse Discrimination. The only
example in the entire novel takes place outside the church, when Lula objects to Cal
bringing her "white chillun" to the black church.
Happy
Cemetery. Scout describes the adjoining graveyard as a "happy cemetery,"
because of all the colorful broken glass and Coke bottles that are strewn about the
place. What Scout doesn't realize is that the glass is probably deliberately broken by
the white gamblers who use the church on weekdays.
Calpurnia's
Double Life. Cal, one of the only members of the First Purchase
congregation who can read, speaks proper English in the Finch household but resorts
to (in her words) "colored talk" among her black friends.
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