Class position of Scout Jem and Aunt Alexandra

During the time ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ was set there was a lot of speculation about class and what position each person stood in society. Harper Lee shows this situation in chapter 23 when Scout and Jem ask if Walter Cunningham could come and live with them. They said they would like to invite him into their home at which point Aunt Alexandra replied ‘the fact that he is not kin to us, but if he were, my answer would be the same’ this implies that she would say no because he is not actually family and even if he was treated like family she would still say no. Jem confronts her about this by saying it is ok to accept people in your life like family at which Aunt Alexandra stating ‘Jean Louise will not invite Walter Cunningham to this house. If he were her double first cousin once removed he would still not be received in this house unless he comes to see Atticus on business’.

The reason for why Aunt Alexandra says this is because she sees Walter as ‘trash’, a lower class member, as well as the rest of the Cunninghams. After this scene it is clear that the Finchs are positioned as a high class family mainly because of Atticus being a well-known lawyer throughout Maycomb. In this time, it was unethical for two different class members to interact in such a way (in this case inviting them to dinner) let alone consider them as family.

It is easy to see that the theme for this chapter is about class and where some people in Maycomb stand in society.

Where Aunt Alexandra calls Walter Cunningham ‘because-he-is-thrash’. She is referring to how Walter is a lower class citizen compared to them. To get a better understanding of this concept, Aunt Alexandra said ‘you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in a shoes and a new suit but he’ll never be like Jem’. Where she says ‘scrub’ she means even if you clean up Walter to the point where he ‘shines’ (have him act like a higher class person) he would never truly be part of their class because of his family.