Sunday, December 7, 2014

What does the Maycomb County Jail look like from the outside in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The tiny Maycomb County Jail must surely have been the
ugliest building in town. Scout describes it as "hideous" and a "miniature Gothic joke.
The jail is "wedged" between B. B. Underwood's Maycomb Tribune
office and Tindal's Hardware Store. It stands two stories high, but it is so narrow that
there is only enough room for two jail cells--one at ground level and one on the second
floor. It must have been designed to look like a small castle, with "tiny battlements
and flying buttresses." It had a "red brick facade" with steel bars at the windows.
Scout calls it the town's lone "conversation piece": Some people thought it presented a
"good solid respectable look," while others claimed it looked "like a Victorian privy."
The jail had no outside light, so on the night that Jem, Scout and Dill approached it,
they found Atticus sitting outside reading from the light of an extension cord and bulb
he had positioned above the door.

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