TKAM: Atticus' Closing Argument

"This case is as simple as black and white."

-Atticus Finch

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To Kill a Mockingbird

Figurative language uses similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and personification to describe something often through comparison with something different.

Figurative language

Literal language means exactly what it says.

Literal language

Literal vs. Figurative Language

Multiple Choice

What does this phrase literally mean?

"This case is as simple as black and white."

• This case is clear-cut. It is not confusing or difficult to understand the facts.

• This is a case that involves a black person and a white person.

Tom is a black man that has been accused of a crime against a white woman.

Tom Robinson

Mayella and her father are white and have accused a black man of a crime.

Mayella Ewell

Multiple Choice

What does this phrase figuratively mean?

"This case is as simple as black and white."

• This is a case that involves a black person and a white person.

• This case is clear-cut. It is not confusing or difficult to understand the facts.

The facts in the case show that there can only be one verdict.

"there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left. We do know in part what Mr. Ewell did: he did what any God-fearing, persevering, respectable white man would do under the circumstances — he swore out a warrant, no doubt signing it with his left hand, and Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses — his right hand” (232).

-Atticus Finch

Multiple Choice

What do Atticus’s words mean without irony?

"This case is as simple as black and white."

• The facts in the case show that there can only be one verdict.

• There is nothing simple about this case at all.

Multiple Choice

Atticus is speaking with irony here. What do his words really mean?

"This case is as simple as black and white."

• The facts in the case show that there can only be one verdict.

• Atticus means the opposite of what he says, because there is nothing simple about racial prejudice and crossing racial lines.

"This case is as simple as black and white."

The issues of the case are not simple at all; they are complex issues in the Jim Crow South. Mayella did something that was taboo in the South, yet it was something that was a natural human behavior. Tom Robinson did something taboo, as well: He felt sorry for a white woman, even though this was also a natural human behavior. The situation is complex, so when Atticus says it’s as simple as black and white, it is ironic because while the facts are simple, the context is not.