At the end of chapter 14, Scout finds Dill hiding under her bed after running away from his home. Dill happens to run away at the end of his school year, which, as stated in one of the first chapters, is about a week before Maycomb gets out of school. So, if Dill runs away in chapter 14, it's probably after his school lets out and before his mother can send him away for the summer. Then, at the beginning of chapter 15, Scout mentions that she and Dill had about a week of fun before the trial started and the craziness in Maycomb changed their world forever. It would seem, then, that the trial and later imprisonment of Tom Robinson started at the beginning or middle of June. It isn't until chapter 24, though, that word of Robinson's death is revealed, and as stated in the previous answer, Scout sets the scene in late August. Therefore, Robinson could have been in prison after the trial for up to 2–3 months, assuming that the trial is in June and that he dies at the end of August.
We are not told exactly how long Tom is in prison after the trial. We know that he is sent to Enfield Prison Farm, which is described as about seventy miles away from Maycomb, and his family is not allowed to visit him there. We know that the trial takes place during the summer—this is obvious from references to "summer flowers," the heat, and the fact that the children are out of school while the trial is going on. Scout remembers that "August was on the brink of September" at the beginning of chapter 24, when it is revealed that Tom was killed trying to escape from the prison. So it must have been a month or so at the most between the trial and Tom's death. He was killed while Atticus was still trying to determine the best course of action for his appeal. Apparently his trial convinced Tom that his best chance of freedom lay not in the courts but in fleeing.
No comments:
Post a Comment