To Kill a Mocking Bird - Calpurnia essays

To Kill a Mocking Bird - Calpurnia essays Choose a character out of the novel; describe the characters personality and placement in the novel. - How does this character relate to the Finch family? - How does the Finch family feel about this character? - Why do they respond to the character like this? Calpurnia is the black maid to the Finchs in Harper Lees novel To Kill A Mockingbird. She is treated by the Finchs as if she were a Finch as they see her as a member of their family. She is a friendly person whom is helpful and caring to the entire Finch family. Calpurnia is seen by the reader as almost being a white person, even though her skin is black and she comes from a black family and background. Calpurnia has spent all her days working for the Finchs and she does her work in a happy yet serious way. She is happy to care for and teach the Finchs as she feels they too care and teach her. It appears to the reader that Calpurnia almost lives a double life; a white family member whilst working and a black woman at her home. She is seen by the reader to be clever and well educated, a thing that most black people of that time were not. Calpurnia is also seen to be quite strict and firm with the children, even though she is in actual fact being loving and compassionate. Even though Calpurnia lives half her life as a white, she still attends black church and has a close bond with all the blacks in the community. There are many reasons Harper Lee chose to put Calpurnia in the novel and position her in the way she did. Harper Lee wanted the reader to see how Calpurnia interacted with both whites and blacks in a similar manner. By having Calpurnia as the Finchs maid, Harper Lee effectively shows the reader that the Finch family are completely un-racist, unlike many of Maycombs residents. Another reason why Harper Lee positioned Calpurnia as t ...