In To Kill A Mockingbird why...?

To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful and has become a classic of modern American fiction. The novel is loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explained the novel's impact by writing, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."

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To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Calpurnia’s Double Life

By taking the Finch kids with her to First Purchase Church, Calpurnia shows them a different side of her character. In this new setting of Maycomb’s African-American community, Calpurnia surprises Jem and Scout by speaking in a voice they’d never heard her use before.

"Cal," I asked, "why do you talk ******-talk to the – to your folks when you know it's not right?"

[…] "Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks' talk at home it'd be out of place, wouldn't it? Now what if I talked white-folks' talk at church, and with my neighbors? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses."

"But Cal, you know better," I said.

"It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike – in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language." (12.139-144)

Calpurnia teaches Scout and Jem about community values, and their relativity: what’s right in one place may be wrong in another. But is that always true? Atticus is famous for acting the same everywhere, and that’s presented as a good thing. Why can Atticus always be the same, while Calpurnia has to adapt herself depending on the community she’s in? Is one of these approaches more successful than the other?

Seeing Calpurnia in relation to the African-American community causes Scout to realize for the first time that Cal actually continues to exist when she’s not at the Finch house.

That Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages. (12.138)

This revelation sparks Scout’s curiosity about Calpurnia, and she peppers her with basic questions like when her birthday is (she doesn’t actually know, not even the year) and where she grew up (near Finches’ Landing). While Cal shares the basic facts of her life, what isn’t revealed is her feelings about them. Does she miss her childhood home? Was she happy there? Did she leave family members behind? What does she do on her days off? While Scout does learn to see Calpurnia as a real person over the course of the novel, the question remains open of to what extent the novel gives Calpurnia an identity separate from her role as the Finch kids’ Giver of Life Lessons.

http://www.shmoop.com/character/literature/harper-...

This is one of my favorites books. If I remember correctly, Cal did not speak with what might be termed an uneducated southern black accent when she was with the family she worked for or when she was in her own home. I remember she took the white children of her employer to her church and spoke with what I just termed an uneducated southern black accent. She explained to the young boy that she did not want the members of her church to think she was above them or not one of them. She took the white children to her black church because she would not be welcome in their white church. I am a 58 year old white woman who grew up in the south and can personally attest to the fact that this author accurately depicted race relations back then.

It's just the way she lives. She feels that since she is not accepted by the white people as anything more than just a cook, she needs to have friends of her own race that have no problem with her skin color. Jem, Atticus & Scout are the only white people who treat her as if she is like them.

Answer mine? (It's on the same book.)

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ahw2C...

Please & thanksssss. =]