To Kill a Mockingbird Summary

In the Dull and lazy Alabama town of Maycomb lives the narrator, a little girl
named Jean Louise "Scout" Finch and her family.The story happens in the
backdrop of the great depression that affected lives terribly. Her widowed
father Atticus Finch is a prominent lawyer and respectable man in the society.
One summer, scout and her brother Jem meet a boy named Dill, who has
come to live in their neighborhood for the summer. Eventually the three
become fascinated with the Radleys place a spooky house on their street .In
the house lives Mr. Nathan Radley,and Arthur (Boo) Radley,who has lived
there for years without coming outside in light.

The children grow very curious about Boo and imagines and makes out
stories of what he would be doing.On their daily trail to school the finch
children find gifts like pennies and gums left for them in the treehole by the
haunted Radley. Atticus advices them and warns them to stop all their made
up stories about Arthur. Atticus asks them to see his life through another
perspective rather than judging him as a scary monster.

At the end of summer fall,the night before Dill left Maycomb,the children sneak
onto the Radley property and Nathan Radley shoots at them. Jem loses his
pants while trying to escape in fear. When he returns for them, he finds them
mended and hung over the fence.Jem gets bruised and the children get
scared by the nights incidents and tries to understand what Atticus was trying
to tell them.That becomes an eye opener for them.

In the unexpected cold and snow of next Winter fall, Jem and Scout find more
presents in the tree, presumably left by the mysterious Boo. But rather to their
amazement Nathan Radley eventually plugs the treehole with
cement.Meanwhile Miss Maudie's house catches fire unexpetedly and during
the fire someone slips a blanket on terriffied Scouts shoulders as she watches
the blaze. Convinced that Boo did it, Jem tells Atticus about the mended pants
and the presents.
Against the racist mentality of Maycombs white community, Atticus agrees to
defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a
poor white woman-Mayella Ewell. Because of Atticuss decision to take up the
badly fixed crime case, Jem and Scout are subjected to abuse from other
children, even when they celebrate Christmas at the family compound on
Finchs Landing. Calpurnia, the Finches black cook, takes them to the local
black church, where the warm and welcoming black community receives the
Finch children.

Atticuss sister, Alexandra, comes to live with the Finches the next summer.
Dill, who is a foster kid, was supposed to live with his new father in another
town but runs away and comes to Maycomb.The finch children help him to
stay in hiding, feeding him. Tom Robinsons trial begins, and when the
accused man is placed in the local jail, a mob of white men try to attack and
hurt him. Atticus faces the mob down the night before the trial. Jem and Scout,
who sneaked out of their house following him see the upraise.When she sees
Atticus being threatened, Scout sences danger and comes forward to the
men.She recognizes one of the men,as the father of one of her classmates
.Her polite and innocent questioning about his son shames him and forces the
grown ups into dispersing the mob.

At the trial itself, the children sneak in and sit in the balcony along with the
towns black citizens.The goes like this according to the procecution:
According to the Ewells, Mayella asked Tom to do some work for her while her
father was out, and Tom came into their house and forcibly beat and raped
Mayella until her father appeared and scared him away. Tom's version is that
Mayella invited him inside, then threw her arms around him and began to kiss
him. Tom tried to push her away. When Bob Ewell arrived, he got angry and
beat her, while Tom ran away in fright. Atticus provides clear evidence that the
accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob, are lying: in fact, Mayella was
caught by her father, and then accused Tom of rape to cover her shame and
guilt. Atticus provides impressive evidence that the marks on Mayellas face
are from wounds that her father created when he beat her . Yet, despite the
significant evidence pointing to Toms innocence, the all-white jury convicts
him.

The innocent Tom.Later he tries to escape from prison and is gets shot . In the
aftermath of the trial, Jems faith in justice gets badly hurt.He stops talking to
everyone and became very gloomy.

Meanwhile, ignoring the trial judgement, Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the
judge have made a fool out of him, and he vows to take revenge. He harms
Tom Robinsons widow, tries to break into the judges house, and finally
attacks Jem and Scout as they walk home from a Halloween party in the
dark.In nights darkness scot finds someone rescuing them. When they realise
they find that it was Boo Radley who saved them and stabbed Ewell fatally
during the struggle. Boo carries the wounded Jem back to Atticuss house,
where the sheriff, in order to protect Boo, insists that Ewell tripped over a tree
root and fell on his own knife. After sitting with Scout for a while, Boo
disappears into the Radley house.

For the Finch children ,goodness in humanity return to reality.They realise the
true meaning of values like sympathy and humanity. They understand the real
life of their mystery man-Boo Radley.