Character Tracker of Calpurnia
Posted by balasubramaniam on June 29, 2008
Calpurnia
Introduction
Calpurnia was a black woman who works as the Finch family’s cook and housekeeper. She is one of the many motherly figures in Scout’s and Jem’s life. She had been with Jem since Jem was born. Atticus trusted Calpurnia, relies on her for support raising his children, and considers her as part of the family. She is treated by the Finchs as if she were a Finch as they see her as a member of their family. Calpurnia care for the Finch children in two different ways; as their housekeeper and as a member of the family.
Description
Calpurnia .is a friendly person whom is helpful and caring to the entire Finch family. Her skin is black and she comes from a black family and background. She was all angles and bones and she was near sighted and she sainted.Her hand was as wide as bed slat and twice as hard.
What the character says/ does?
Calpurnia has spent all her days working for the Finchs and she does her work in a happy yet serious way. She is happy to care for and teach the Finchs. Calpurnia also taught scout how to write script on rainy days.
What other characters say about her?
Scout described her family’s black cook, Caipurnia, as strict and tyrannical. She is very clever and well educated, a thing that most black people of that time were not. Calpurnia is also seen to be quite strict and firm with the children. Scout and Jem will also often consult Calpurnia on their ideas and questions as she listens carefully and offers useful suggestions to them. This is seen by the way Scout and Jem both treat Calpurnia as an equal, just like their father Atticus does. Atticus will everytime support for her.She is a very dominant character as she thinks that she is right at all the time.She is seen as Mr Atticus as ‘indispensable’as he mentioned to Scott that they can’t operate a single day without her.
What does it tells you about the character?
It appears to me that Calpurnia almost lives a double life; a white family member whilst working and a black woman at her home.She is very kind,caring,concerned & helpful person who goes out of her way to inform the operator that Tim, a mad dog is on the loose.In return, she wanted the operator to in from others about this dog.She even took the trouble to go to the Radly’s house to inform about the mad dog. She acted like a ‘teacher’ when she set out a writing task for Scott to do.
