Question

Chapter 20 Question: a) What distinction does Atticus make in his speech about the written and unwritten laws of Maycomb?

Answer 1

He discussed to the Court about how there are written laws in Maycomb that the Ewells break regularly, but there are also unwritten laws that exist in their community. Maycomb has a certain social code that its citizens are expected to live by. One of these is that there should not be any affection between a white woman and a black man. He makes this distinction, because although there may not have been a written rule against it, this was the broken "law" that mattered more than any other social code broken by the Ewells previously.