Summary Chapter 26

• when school starts again, Jem and Scout pass the Radley Place every day
• they abandoned feeling scared by the house and Scout wishes to see Boo Radley one day
• both Jem and Scout keep thinking about the trial
• one day in school, Scout‘s teacher Miss Gates talks about how Hitler persecuted the Jews and she incorporates the virtues of equality and democracy in her lecture
• Scout later wonders how her teacher can preach about equality when she was the one who said that the black people in town needed a lesson after Tom Robinson‘s trial
• Jem listens to Scout and gets upset, demanding that Scout should never talk about the trial to him again

Summary Chapter 27

• Bob Ewell blames Atticus for getting a job with a Depression job program and losing it after just a few days
• strange things happen in town in October: Judge Taylor finds his screen door open and sees a shadow hushing away and Bob Ewell starts following Helen Robinson to work, whispering insults
• Deas threatens to arrest Bob if he doesn‘t stop bothering Helen and he leaves her alone
• Aunt Alexandra believes that Bob still holds a grudge against people who are in some manner connected to the trial of Tom Robinson
• the town Maycomb sponsors a Halloween party and a play at the school in order to prevent mischief to happen like it did last year, when someone put all the furniture of the house of two sisters in their basement
• the play focuses on agriculture and every child represents a food (Scout looks like ham)
• Jem ends up taking Scout to the play since both Atticus and Aunt Alexandra are too tired

Function

• increasing sense of danger or threat
  
  • reference to the Radley Place: the reason why the place does not scare the children anymore is their being hardened by the events surrounding the trial and also, the real threat that Bob Ewell poses
  • Boo is not considered to be a freak anymore by the children and they think fondly of him which foreshadows his appearance later in the book
  • the fading fear of Boo Radley stands in contrast to the dangerous and unpredictable Bob Ewell
  • nothing has happened to the Finches yet despite their connection to the trial, increasing the sense of foreboding
• the chapter shows how deeply affected Jem is by the injustice of the trial
  
  • Scout still believes in the goodness of people, thus not understanding the hypocrisy of her teacher Miss Gates
  • Jem does not want to hear anything about it, trying to delete the painful memory of the trial