document_title: List of To Kill a Mockingbird characters

question_text: who is mrs farrow in to kill a mockingbird

text: Primary characters[edit]

text: Atticus Finch[edit]

text: Atticus Finch is the middle-aged father of Jem and Scout Finch. He is a lawyer and was once known as "the deadliest shot in Maycomb County". Although he was a good shot, he does not like to mention the fact as he does not like the thought of having an advantage over people. He appears to support racial equality and was appointed to represent Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. The town disapproves of him defending Tom especially when he makes clear his intent to defend Tom Robinson to the best of his abilities. He is portrayed by Gregory Peck in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: "Scout" Finch[edit]

text: Jean Louise "Scout" Finch is the narrator and To Kill a Mockingbird is told by an adult Scout who often comments on how she could not understand something at the time but now can appreciate it. She gets in trouble with her teacher Miss Caroline because Miss Caroline expects Scout to learn reading and writing her way. She is a tomboy and spends the most of her time with her brother Jem and best friend Dill. To the Jem’s advice to pretend to be a lady and start sewing or something, she answers ‘Hell no.’ The rare hints the narrator gives us about her grown-up life reveal that she ultimately hasn’t changed herself for others.[2]

text: She matures from age 6 to age 9 as the novel progresses but remains naive and idealistic, despite an increased understanding of human nature and racism in her town. At the beginning of the book, Scout is confused by some of the words and names she hears people directing towards her father, such as "nigger-lover". Being only six, Scout does not know how to handle such situations so she tries to resolve her problems by fighting, or by talking to Atticus about what she has heard. By the end of the book, Scout realizes that racism does exist and comes to terms with its presence in her town. Scout also learns how to deal with others, including the Finch family housekeeper, Calpurnia, and her aunt, Alexandra. Scout is the only one of the novel's primary three children (Dill, Jem, and herself) to see and speak to Boo Radley during the course of the novel and realize that he is harmless, despite her initial fear of him. She also stops a mob that is trying to lynch Tom Robinson by talking to the mob leader, Mr. Cunningham, about inviting his son, Walter, over for dinner. Mr. Cunningham then tells the other mob members to get back in their cars and leave them alone. The members listen, and Scout unintentionally saves Tom Robinson's life. She is portrayed by Mary Badham in the film adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: Notable quote: "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." [3]

text: "Jem" Finch[edit]

text: Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch is Atticus' son and Scout's older brother by four years. Jem matures greatly throughout the course of the novel, much more affected by events than Scout seems to be. Being four years Scout's senior, Jem is seen to have a greater understanding of - and therefore greater difficulty in navigating - the obstacles thrown their way. Jem is seen explaining many things to Scout throughout the novel. Bob Ewell breaks Jem's arm, subsequently resulting in it being shorter than it had been, in an attempt to protect his sister. He is portrayed by Phillip Alford in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: Dill Harris[edit]

text: Charles Baker "Dill" Harris is a short, smart boy who visits Maycomb every summer from Meridian, Mississippi, and stays with his Aunt Rachel (Aunt Stephanie in the film). Dill is the best friend of both Jem and Scout, and his goal throughout the novel is to get Boo Radley to come out of his house. The children concoct many plans to lure Boo Radley out of his house for a few summers until Atticus tells them to stop. In chapter 5 of the novel, Dill promises to marry Scout and they become "engaged". One night Dill runs away from his home in Meridian, arriving in Maycomb County where he hides under Scout's bed. When she finds Dill, he tells both Scout and Atticus that he was chained to a wall in his father's basement; later, he confesses he actually ran away because he felt he was being replaced by his stepfather. Before Dill returned to Meridian after the summer, he went swimming with Jem at the Barker's Eddy creek. Scout, unfortunately, was unable to participate, because both boys were swimming naked.

text: Unlike Scout and Jem, Dill lacks the security of family support. He is unwanted and unloved by his mother and stepfather: "They do get on a lot better without me, I cannot help them any." As Francis (a cousin of Jem and Scout) says, "He hasn't got a home, he just gets passed around from relative to relative." Dill maintains he has no father; he doesn't know where his father might live, or if he will ever come back. He is played by John Megna in the film adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: This character is believed to be based on author Truman Capote, a childhood friend of Harper Lee.[citation needed]

text: Calpurnia[edit]

text: Calpurnia, nicknamed Cal, is the Finch family's African-American housekeeper, whom the children love and Atticus deeply respects (he remarks in her defense that she "never indulged [the children] like most colored nurses"). She is highly regarded by Atticus. She is an important figure in Scout's life, providing discipline, instruction, and love. She also fills the maternal role for the children after their mother's death. Calpurnia is a mother herself and raised her son, Zeebo, to adulthood. Calpurnia is one of the few black characters in the novel who is able to read and write, and it is she who taught Scout to write. She learned how to read from Miss Maudie's aunt, Miss Buford, who taught her how to read out of Blackstone's Commentaries, a book given to her. Aunt Alexandra despised Calpurnia because Alexandra believed that Calpurnia was not a "maternal figure" for Jem and Scout, especially for Scout.

text: Calpurnia is a member of the First Purchase M.E. African Church in Maycomb. While Scout always hears her speak proper English, she is surprised to learn that Calpurnia does not do so at church, especially with the uneducated members of the congregation.

text: While everyone in the novel is filtered through Scout’s perception, Calpurnia in particular appears for a long time more as Scout’s idea of her than as a real person. At the beginning of the novel, Scout appears to think of Calpurnia as the wicked stepmother to Scout’s own Cinderella. However, towards the end of the book, Scout views Calpurnia as someone she can look up to, and realizes Calpurnia has only protected her over the years. She is played by Estelle Evans in the film.

text: [Arthur] Boo Radley[edit]

text: Arthur "Boo" Radley is a recluse in To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: Maycomb children believe he is a horrible person, due to the rumors spread about him and a trial he underwent as a teenager. It is implied during the story that Boo is a very lonely man who attempts to reach out to Jem and Scout for love and friendship, such as leaving them small gifts and figures in a tree knothole. Scout finally meets him at the very end of the book, when he saves the children's lives from Bob Ewell. Scout describes him as being sickly white, with a thin mouth, thin and feathery hair, and grey eyes, almost as if he were blind. During the same night, when Boo whispers to Scout to walk him back to the Radley house, Scout takes a moment to picture what it would be like to be Boo Radley. While standing on his porch, she realizes his "exile" inside his house is really not that lonely.

text: Boo Radley's heroics in protecting the children from Bob Ewell are covered up by Atticus, Sheriff Tate, and Scout. This can be read as a wise refusal of fame. As Tate notes, if word got out that Boo killed Ewell, Boo would be inundated with gifts and visits, calamitous for him due to his reclusive personality. The precocious Scout recognizes the danger: renown would "kill the mockingbird". Boo Radley is a ghost who haunts the book yet manifests himself at just the right moments in just the right way. He is, arguably, the most potent character in the whole book and as such, inspires the other key characters to save him when he needs saving.

text: After the Tom Robinson trial, Jem and Scout have a different understanding of Boo Radley. “Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time… it's because he wants to stay inside." (23.117) Having seen a sample of the horrible things their fellow townspeople can do, choosing to stay out of the mess of humanity doesn’t seem like such a strange choice.[4]

text: When Boo finally does come out, he has a good reason: Bob Ewell is trying to murder the Finch children. No one sees what happens in the scuffle, but at the end of it, Ewell is dead and Boo carries an unconscious Jem to the Finch house. Finally faced with Boo, Scout doesn’t recognize him at first, but suddenly realizes who he is. Boo Radley is played by Robert Duvall in the film.

text: Judge John Taylor[edit]

text: Judge John Taylor is a white-haired old man with a reputation for running his court in an informal fashion and an enjoyment of singing and dipping tobacco. He is unimportant to the children until he presides over the Tom Robinson trial, in which he shows great distaste for the Ewells and great respect for Atticus. Because of the judge's sympathies for Tom, Bob Ewell breaks into the judge's house while the judge's wife is at church. After the trial, Miss Maudie points out to the children that the judge had tried to help Tom by appointing Atticus to the case instead of Maxwell Green, the new, untried lawyer who usually received court-appointed cases. Judge Taylor knew that Atticus was the only man who would stand a chance at acquitting Tom, or at least would be able to keep the jury thinking for more than a few minutes. By doing this, Judge Taylor was not giving in or supporting racism. He is portrayed in the film by Paul Fix.

text: Miss Maudie Atkinson[edit]

text: Miss Maude "Maudie" Atkinson lives across the street from the Finch family. She had known the Finches for many years, having been brought up on the Buford place, which was near the Finches' ancestral home, Finch's Landing. She is described as a woman of about 40 who enjoys baking and gardening; her cakes are especially held in high regard. However, she is frequently harassed by devout "Foot-Washing Baptists", who tell her that her enjoyment of gardening is a sin. Miss Maudie befriends Scout and Jem and tells them stories about Atticus as a boy. It is strongly implied that she and Atticus have a more than platonic relationship. Also, she is one of the few adults that Jem and Scout hold in high regard and respect. She does not act condescendingly towards them, even though they are young children. During the course of the novel, her house burns down; however, she shows remarkable courage throughout this (even saying that she wanted to burn it down herself to make more room for her flowers). She is not prejudiced, though she talks caustically to Miss Stephanie Crawford, unlike many of her Southern neighbors, and teaches Scout important lessons about racism and human nature. It is important to note that Miss Maudie fully explains that "it is a sin to kill a mockingbird", whereas Atticus Finch initially brings up the subject but doesn't go into depth. When Jem gets older, and doesn't want to be bothered by Scout, Miss Maudie keeps her from getting angry. Maudie is played by Rosemary Murphy in the film.

text: Bob Ewell[edit]

text: Robert E. Lee "Bob" Ewell is the main antagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird. He has a daughter named Mayella and a younger son named Burris, as well as six other unnamed children. He is an alcoholic, poaching game to feed his family because he spends whatever money they legally gain via government "relief checks" on alcohol. It is implied, and evidence suggests, that he was the one who abused his daughter Mayella, not Tom Robinson (the African American man accused of doing so). Although most everybody in town knows that the Ewells are a disgrace and not to be trusted, it is made clear that Tom Robinson was convicted because he is a Negro whose accuser is white. Upon hearing of Tom's death, Bob is absolutely gleeful, gloating about his success. After being humiliated at the trial, however, he goes on a quest for revenge, becoming increasingly violent. He begins by spitting in Atticus' face, followed by a failed attempt to break into the home of Judge Taylor, then finally menacing Helen, the poor widow of Tom Robinson. Ewell later attempts to murder Jem and Scout Finch with a knife to complete his revenge. Fortunately, Boo Radley saves Jem and Scout and it is believed that he kills Ewell with the knife. Heck Tate, the sheriff, puts in the official report that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife and died after lying under a tree for 45 minutes. Ewell is played by James Anderson in the film.

text: Mayella Ewell[edit]

text: Mayella Violet Ewell, 19, is the oldest of the eight Ewell children. Before the trial, Mayella is noted for growing red geraniums outside her otherwise dirty home in order to bring some beauty into her life. Due to her family's living situation, Mayella has no opportunity for human contact or love. She eventually gets so desperate that she attempts to seduce a black man, Tom Robinson, by saving up nickels to send her siblings to go get ice cream so that Mayella can be alone with Tom. Her father sees this through a window and in punishment he beats her. Ewell then finds the sheriff, Heck Tate, and tells him that his daughter has been raped and beaten by Tom. At the trial, Atticus points out that only the right side of Mayella's face is injured, suggesting a left-handed assailant; Tom's left arm is mangled and useless, but Bob Ewell is left-handed. When Atticus asks her if she has any friends, she becomes confused because she does not know what a friend is. During her testimony she is confused by Atticus' polite speech and thinks that his use of "Miss Mayella" is meant to mock her. She testifies against Tom Robinson. Mayella is played by Collin Wilcox in the film.

text: Tom Robinson[edit]

text: Thomas "Tom" Robinson is an African-American who is put on trial for the rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Atticus is assigned to defend him, and stands up to a lynch mob intent on exacting their own justice against him before the trial begins. Tom's left arm is crippled and useless, the result of an accident with a cotton gin when he was a child. Atticus uses this fact as the cornerstone of his defense strategy, pointing out that the nature of Mayella's facial injuries strongly suggest a left-handed assailant. Tom testifies that he had frequently helped Mayella with household chores because he felt sorry for her and the family's difficult life - a statement that shocks the all-white, male jury. Despite Atticus' skilled defense, the jury's racial prejudices lead them to find Tom guilty. Atticus plans to appeal the verdict, but before he can do so, Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape the prison where he is being held. Tom Robinson is played by Brock Peters.

text: Aunt Alexandra[edit]

text: Alexandra Hancock (née Finch) is Atticus' and Jack's sister, married to James "Uncle Jimmy" Hancock. She has a son named Henry and a very spoiled grandson named Francis. Around the middle of the book, Aunt Alexandra decides to leave her husband at Finch's Landing, the Finch family homestead to come stay with the Finches. Aunt Alexandra doesn't consider the black Calpurnia to be a very good motherly figure for Jem and Scout; she disapproves of Scout being a tomboy and wants to make Scout into a southern belle (encouraging her to act more 'lady like').[5] This is the cause of many conflicts between Scout and Alexandra throughout the course of the novel. However, as the trial progresses, Scout comes to see how much her aunt cares for her father and what a strong woman she is. This is especially evidenced by a tea party when Scout is horrified by the racism displayed, and her aunt and Miss Maudie help her deal with her feelings. By the end of the book, it's clear that Alexandra cares very much for her niece and nephew, though she and Scout will probably never really get along.

text: Minor characters[edit]

text: Jack Finch[edit]

text: John Hale "Jack" Finch is Atticus' and Alexandra's younger brother. (He is about 40, which is 10 years younger than Atticus.) Jack smells like alcohol and something sweet, and is said that he and Alexandra have similar features. Jack is a childless doctor who can always make Scout and Jem laugh, and they adore him. He and Miss Maudie are close to the same age; he frequently teases her with marriage proposals, which she always declines. Jack also has a pet cat named Rose Aylmer, who is mentioned during the Christmas visit.

text: Francis Hancock[edit]

text: Francis Hancock is the spoiled grandson of Aunt Alexandra. (The son of her son, Henry Hancock.) Every Christmas, Henry and his wife drop Francis at Finch's Landing, which is the only time Scout and Jem see him. Francis lives in Mobile, Alabama, and is a bit of a tattle-tale. He gets along well with Jem, but often spars with Scout. One Christmas, Francis calls Atticus a "nigger-lover," as well as insisting that he was ruining the family and the likes, which infuriates Scout and causes them to get into a fight. Francis lies about his role in it, telling Uncle Jack that Scout started it by calling him a "whore lady", and Jack therefore punishes Scout. However, she explains the full story and charitably persuades her uncle not to punish Francis about it, but to let Atticus think they had been fighting about something else (although Atticus later discovers the truth).

text: Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose[edit]

text: Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose is an elderly woman who lives near the Finches. She is hated by the children, who run by her house to avoid her. Scout describes Mrs. Dubose as "plain hell." A virulent racist, she calls Atticus a "nigger-lover" to his children's faces, and Jem flies into a rage and ravages Mrs. Dubose's camellia bushes. As a punishment, Jem is required to read to Mrs. Dubose each day for a month. As Jem reads, she experiences a fit of drooling and twitching and does not seem to pay any attention to the words. When an alarm rings, Jem is allowed to leave for the day. She extends the punishment for one extra week and dies shortly after letting Jem go for the last time. Atticus informs him that Mrs. Dubose was terminally ill and had become addicted to morphine. By reading to her, Jem had distracted her so that she could break the addiction. In thanks, she leaves him a candy box with a camellia flower in it; Jem burns the box in anger, but is later seen by Scout admiring the flower. Atticus tells Jem that Mrs. Dubose was the bravest person he ever knew, and she was trying to teach Jem the importance of bravery and true courage to endure anything when the situation is hopeless, as in her morphine addiction.

text: Mr. Heck Tate[edit]

text: Mr. Heck Tate is a friend of Atticus and also the sheriff of Maycomb County. He believes in protecting the innocent although he doesn't usually show it. When Tom has been locked in jail and a lynch mob turns up to kill him, the sheriff refuses to hand Tom over, instead dispersing the crowd. At the end of the book, the two men argue over whether Jem or Boo Radley should be held responsible for the death of Bob Ewell. Heck eventually persuades Atticus to accept the theory that Ewell accidentally fell on his own knife, thus saving the harmless, reclusive Boo from the public exposure of a criminal trial.

text: Mr. Braxton Underwood[edit]

text: Mr. Braxton Bragg Underwood is a news reporter and a friend of Atticus. He owns and also publishes The Maycomb Tribune. Being a racist, he disagrees with Atticus on principle. He also has a strong belief in justice, as exemplified when he defends Atticus from the Cunningham mob by having his double barrel shotgun loaded and ready to shoot them. He also demonstrates some humanity when he publishes a scathing editorial comparing the killing of Tom Robinson (a cripple) to "the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children".

text: Mr. Horace Gilmer[edit]

text: Mr. Horace Gilmer is a lawyer from Abbottsville, and is the prosecuting attorney in the Tom Robinson case. Mr. Gilmer is between the ages of forty and sixty. Mr. Gilmer has a slight cast with one eye, which he uses to his advantage in trial. Mr. Gilmer appeared to be racist in his harsh cross-examination of Tom Robinson, but it is hinted at that he is in fact going easy on Tom. He and Atticus are not rivals and talk to each other during recesses during the case.

text: Dr. Scott Reynolds[edit]

text: Dr. Reynolds is the Maycomb doctor. He is well known to Scout and Jem. Scout says that he "had brought Jem and me into the world, had led us through every childhood disease known to man including the time Jem fell out of the tree house, and he had never lost our friendship. Dr. Reynolds said that if we were boil-prone things would have been different..." (ch. 28). He inspects Jem's broken arm and Scout's minor bruises after the attack from Bob Ewell under the tree.

text: Dolphus Raymond[edit]

text: Dolphus Raymond is a white landowner who is jaded by the hypocrisy of the white society and prefers to live among black folks. In fact, he has children with a black woman. Dolphus pretends he is an alcoholic so that the people of Maycomb will have an excuse for his behavior, but in fact he only drinks Coca Cola out of a paper bag to try to hide it. When Dill and Scout discover that he is not a drunk, they are amazed. He shows Scout how sometimes you can pretend to be someone you're not so people will be more understanding of you.

text: Link Deas[edit]

text: Link Deas owns cotton fields and a store in Maycomb who employs Tom and later Helen because she does not get accepted by any other employers in the county due to Tom Robinson's legal troubles. He announces to the court (in defense of Tom) at one point in the trial that he hadn't “had a speck o' trouble outta him” in the eight years Tom had been working for him, and gets sent out by Judge John Taylor for doing so. When Bob Ewell starts threatening Helen after the trial, Mr. Deas fiercely defends her and threatens to have Mr. Ewell arrested if he keeps bothering her. He is on Tom Robinson's side during the trial and remains loyal to the family afterward.

text: Miss Caroline Fisher[edit]

text: Miss Caroline Fisher is Scout's first grade teacher and is new to Maycomb, Alabama and its ways. She attempts to teach the first grade class using a new system which she learned from taking certain college courses (Jem mistakenly refers to it as the "Dewey Decimal System", which is really how library books are organized.). She is upset by Scout's advanced reading capabilities and believes that Scout is receiving lessons from Atticus. She feels as though Scout is trying to outsmart and mock her. In an effort to standardize the class, she forbids Scout from reading with her father. Atticus asks Scout to step into Miss Caroline's skin. However, he continues to allow Scout to read with him at night so long as she continues to go to school. Miss Caroline has good intentions but proves quite incompetent as a teacher. When Scout tells Miss Fisher that she shamed a student (Walter Cunningham, Jr.) by giving him lunch money, she raps Scout's palms with a ruler (a punishment unheard of in Maycomb). She is also very sensitive and gets emotionally hurt quite easily, as seen when she cries after Burris Ewell yells at her, "Report and be damned to ye! Ain't no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin'! You ain't makin' me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain't makin' me go nowhere!" After the Burris Ewell incident, Miss Caroline is seldom seen and soon forgotten.

text: Reverend Sykes[edit]

text: Reverend Sykes is the reverend of the First Purchase M.E. African Church in Maycomb County. This is the church Tom Robinson attended. Reverend Sykes forces the congregation to donate 10 dollars for Tom Robinson's family since at the time, Tom's wife, Helen, was having trouble finding work. During the trial, when the courtroom was too packed for the children to find seats, Reverend Sykes lets the kids sit with him up in the colored balcony and even saves their seats for them.

text: Miss Stephanie Crawford[edit]

text: Stephanie Crawford is the neighborhood gossip who claimed that she saw Boo Radley from her bedroom standing outside of her cleaned window one night. Crawford is one of the first on the scene after a loud gunshot is heard behind the Radley house. Because she is the neighborhood gossip, it is unwise to think of anything that she says as true, because most of the time it is not true at all. She is a friend of Alexandra Hancock. She lets Miss Maudie live with her when Miss Maudie's house burns down, supposedly in order to steal Miss Maudie's Lane cake recipe. She is thrilled to pass on gossip to the kids about Boo Radley. She claimed to have witnessed Bob Ewell's threatening Atticus at the Post Office corner as she was returning from the local Jitney Jungle grocery store.

text: In the film she takes the place of Rachel Haverford and is now Dill's aunt.

text: Miss Rachel Haverford[edit]

text: Miss Rachel Haverford is Dill's aunt and the Finches' next door neighbor. She drank neat whiskey heavily after seeing a rattlesnake coiled in her closet, on her washing, when she hung her negligee up. Even though she can be very hard to deal with, she truly does love her nephew. Her family name, in the legends of Maycomb County, is synonymous with jackass. She is also a Southern Belle.

text: In the film, she is not a character and Miss Stephanie takes her place as Dill's aunt.

text: Helen(Sophy) Robinson[edit]

text: Helen Robinson is the wife of Tom Robinson. She is spoken about many times. She has three children. Employed by Link Deas following the death of her husband, she is repeatedly harassed by Bob Ewell when traveling to work. Upon learning of this, Deas threatens Ewell, forcing him to stop. She is an example of how one person's actions can have an effect on a lot of people and she elucidates the hardships that surround the Tom Robinson case.

text: Nathan Radley[edit]

text: Nathan Radley is the brother of Arthur "Boo" Radley and another difficult character to understand in To Kill a Mockingbird. When the children try to catch a view of "Boo" late one night through a window, he shoots over their heads with a shotgun (albeit thinking he was aiming at a black person). Nathan also cements up the knothole in which Arthur leaves little gifts for the children. On the other hand, he helps Miss Maudie by saving some of her belongings when her house is on fire. He is more present than his brother, but equally mysterious.

text: Jessie[edit]

text: Jessie is Mrs. Dubose's black nurse. She is the woman who shoos the children out when Mrs. Dubose has her fits, and she seems to care enormously for Mrs. Dubose. When Jem is forced to stay reading to Mrs. Dubose, Jessie kindly leads Jem and Scout to the door when Mrs. Dubose's alarm goes off. The rumors about Mrs. Dubose concealing a gun about her person involves Jessie; the book says "and even if Mrs. Dubose missed, her girl Jessie wouldn't".

text: Burris Ewell[edit]

text: Burris Ewell is a son of Bob Ewell and a younger sibling of Mayella Ewell as well as the first antagonist of the novel. Burris is described as being chiefly antagonistic of Little Chuck Little and his teacher Miss Caroline Fisher. He comes to the first day of school, but departs just as everyone else in his family does. Burris is also poor. He has live lice in his hair. Burris also scared his teacher Caroline Fisher. He behaves rudely when she tells him to go home, wash his hair, and come back clean the next day. He refuses, and a student explains to Miss Caroline that Ewell children don't attend school. All they do is show up for the first day, get marked down on the register, and then they miss the entire school year until the first day of the next year. His famous quote was, "Report and be damned to ye! Ain't no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin'! You ain't makin' me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain't makin' me go nowhere!" As of Scout's first year of school (the first grade), Burris has repeated the first grade three times. Burris is also like his father and is very belligerent.

text: Lula[edit]

text: Lula is an African-American woman with a dislike for white people. She doesn't like the idea of Calpurnia bringing Atticus Finch's children, Jem and Scout, with her to church and tells her so but is overruled by the other congregants. According to James Zeebo, Calpurnia's son, Lula's said to be, "a troublemaker from way back, with fancy ideas and haughty ways." She's threatened with being "churched" (subjected to church discipline) by Reverend Sykes.

text: Mrs. Grace Merriweather[edit]

text: Mrs. Grace Merriweather is the producer of the play in which Scout plays as a ham. She tells Everett that "the ladies of the South Maycomb Alabama Methodist Episcopal Church are behind him one hundred percent." She is mostly known for her devotion to the church and is widely held as the most devout lady in Maycomb; however, like many of her peers, she is very hypocritical and loves to gossip with all the other women.

text: Walter Cunningham, Jr.[edit]

text: Walter Cunningham, Jr is a child who is almost as old as Jem but is in Scout's class. He is too poor to even pay off a 25-cent debt because the Great Depression hit his poor family hard. Walter is not only too poor but also his family is too proud to take any money. He is invited over to the Finches' house once, after engaging in a fight with Scout, where he covers up all of his dinner with molasses, much to Scout's vocal dismay. This teaches Scout a lesson in humility and compassion.

text: Walter Cunningham, Sr.[edit]

text: Walter Cunningham, Sr. is Walter Cunningham Jr.'s father. He appears only twice, once at the beginning of the story when he has to pay off the debt to Atticus (Walter Cunningham Sr. was his client) by giving him firewood, vegetables and other supplies. He also leads the mob that comes to lynch Tom Robinson the night before the trial. Only when Scout talks to him about his son and how much he owes to Atticus does he reconsider and call off the mob. Scout innocently shames him because Scout reminds him of all the things that Atticus has done for him and for Maycomb County. After the verdict is given in the trial, Atticus tells Jem that one of the Cunninghams had changed his thoughts about Tom and pleaded that Tom was not guilty to the jury.

text: Little Chuck Little[edit]

text: Little Chuck Little is a student in Scout's first grade class who has the mindset of an adult. His real name is Charles. He is depicted as chiefly antagonistic of Burris Ewell. He is presented in the novel when Miss Caroline is frightened by Burris' lice. He warned Miss Caroline that if Burris wasn't released from class, he might try something that would put their classmates at risk. When Burris starts advancing on Little Chuck after his warning/veiled insult, Little Chuck's hand moved to his pocket (implying that he was going to pull out a knife) while saying, "Watch your step, Burris. I'd soon's kill you as look at you. Now go home." Scared by Little Chuck's bravery and his implied knife, Burris retreats. From this we see, through the narrative view of Scout, his gentlemanly attitude and how it calms Miss Caroline down. Little Chuck may be even more intelligent than originally meets the eye, as he easily could have been bluffing about the aforementioned implied knife to scare Burris into retreating.

text: Mr. Dick Avery[edit]

text: Mr. Dick Avery is an overweight neighbor who tells Jem and Scout that dramatic changes in the weather are caused by disobedient and misbehaving children. After it snows, they build a snowman that resembles him. Mr. Avery can also be seen in the story pushing a mattress out of a window when Miss Maudie's house catches fire. The kids, including Jem and Scout, always waited for him to do something interesting. For instance, Jem claims that one night he urinated from his front porch in an impressive arc.

text: Miss Gates[edit]

text: Miss Gates is a third grade teacher at Scout's school who insists that America isn't prejudiced like Hitler's Germany. Despite this, Scout has heard her say that the blacks need to be taught a lesson after Tom's trial.

text: Eula May[edit]

text: Eula May is Maycomb's most prominent telephone operator. She sends out public announcements, invitations, and activates the fire alarm. She announced the closing of schools when it snowed and announced the rabid dog that entered Maycomb. Also, Eula May knows everybody in the town because of her unique job.

text: Cecil Jacobs[edit]

text: Cecil Jacobs teases Scout and Jem at school. Scout almost gets into a fight with Cecil over the trial of Tom Robinson. Scout beats up Cecil Jacobs because he says Atticus is a "Nigger Lover." He gives a current event on Adolf Hitler and later frightens Scout and Jem on their way to the Halloween pageant. He and Scout then pair up at the carnival. At the Halloween pageant afterwards, Cecil was a cow. He hints that black people are not as good as white people while talking about Hitler during current events. He also tends to take jokes too far. However importantly he shows how prejudice is passed on from parent to child.

text: Tim Johnson[edit]

text: Tim Johnson is a dog belonging to Harry Johnson (a character in the book who is mentioned once but is never seen). He is infected by rabies in chapter 10 and goes mad, putting everyone in the town at risk. Atticus is forced to shoot Tim Johnson before he reaches the Radley House or attacks anyone. When Atticus shoots the dog, his excellent marksmanship is revealed to Scout and Jem (his nickname used to be One-Shot Finch). The dog's body is collected by Zeebo.

text: Simon Finch[edit]

text: Simon Finch is the founder of Finch's Landing. He is referred to in the first chapter of the book, being a direct ancestor of Atticus. He is a Cornish Methodist, and emigrated from England to avoid religious persecution, landing in Philadelphia before settling in Alabama. He was married, with one son, six daughters. He is also an apothecary.

text: Maxwell Green[edit]

text: Maxwell Green is the new lawyer in town. He is normally the judicially-assigned defense attorney but Judge Taylor assigned Tom Robinson's case to Atticus to give Tom Robinson a better chance.

text: Mr. X Billups[edit]

text: Mr. X Billups who is seen only once in the book, going to the trial, is described as a "funny man". X is his name, and not his initial. He was asked repeated times what his name was until he signed it. X was the name he had been given when he was born because his parents marked his birth certificate with an X instead of a name.

text: The Barber Sisters (Miss "Tutti" and Miss "Frutti")[edit]

text: The Barber Sisters (Miss Sarah, nicknamed "Tutti" and Miss Frances, nicknamed "Frutti") are maiden sisters who live in the only house in Maycomb with a cellar. They were originally from Clanton, Alabama; and are rumored to be Republicans. Besides their Yankee ways, both sisters are deaf (Tutti completely deaf; Frutti uses an ear trumpet), and had a Halloween prank pulled on them by some "wicked" schoolchildren (Scout claims she was not included) who put all of their furniture in their cellar.

text: Mrs. Gertrude Farrow[edit]

text: Mrs. Farrow is a lady in the missionary society who visits the Finch house occasionally.

text: Mr. Conner[edit]

text: Mr. Conner is mentioned early on in the book. He was locked in an outhouse by "Boo" Radley and his friends. After taking the teenagers to court, Mr. Conner accused them of "disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, assault and battery, and using abusive and profane language in the presence and hearing of a female." He added the last charge after claiming that the teens had "cussed so loud he was sure every lady in Maycomb heard them."

text: Zeebo[edit]

text: Zeebo is Calpurnia's eldest son. He is one of just four people in First Purchase Church who can read, so he is the vocal leader, leading hymns in the Negro First Purchase Church by "lining," reading a line of verse and having the congregation repeat it. Calpurnia taught Zeebo how to read. He is also the garbage man of Maycomb, and took away the dead rabid dog, Tim Johnson. When a fellow church member, a woman named Lula, tries to make the children feel bad for attending church with his mother, Zeebo welcomes Scout and Jem with open arms. He is kind but very quiet.


document_title: Jerry Maguire

question_text: who said show me the money in the movie jerry maguire

root

text: Jerry Maguire

text: Plot[edit]

text: Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is a glossy 35-year-old sports agent working for Sports Management International (SMI). After having a life-altering epiphany about his role as a sports agent, he writes a mission statement about perceived dishonesty in the sports management business and his desire to work with fewer clients so as to produce better quality. In turn, SMI management decides to send Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr), Jerry's protégé, to fire him. Jerry and Sugar call all of Jerry's clients to try convincing them not to hire the services of the other. Jerry speaks to Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), one of his clients who is disgruntled with his contract. He needs a 10 million dollar contract for his family to live on. Jerry informed him if he gets injured for the season, he will get no money from the Cardinals. Rod tests Jerry's resolve through a very long telephone conversation while Sugar is able to convince the rest of Jerry's clients to stick with SMI instead. Leaving the office, Jerry announces that he will start his own agency and asks if anyone is willing to join him, to which only 26-year-old single mother Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) agrees. Meanwhile, Frank "Cush" Cushman (Jerry O'Connell), a superstar quarterback prospect who expects to be the number one pick in the NFL Draft, initially also stays with Jerry after he makes a visit to the Cushman home. However, Sugar is able to convince Cushman and his father to sign with SMI over Jerry the night before the draft. Cushman's father implies they decided to sign with Sugar over Jerry when they saw Jerry attending to Tidwell; an African-American player, versus his son (a white player).

tag: p

text: After an argument, Jerry breaks up with his disgruntled fiancée Avery (Kelly Preston). He then turns to Dorothy, becoming closer to her young son, Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki), and eventually starts a relationship with her. Dorothy contemplates moving to San Diego as she has a secure job offer there, however she and Jerry agree to get married. Jerry concentrates all his efforts on Rod, now his only client, who turns out to be very difficult to satisfy. Over the next several months, the two direct harsh criticism towards each other with Rod claiming that Jerry is not trying hard enough to get him a contract while Jerry claims that Rod is not proving himself worthy of the money for which he asks. Rod takes Jerry's advice to prove he is worthy of his contract. Rod is playing well and his team is winning. Meanwhile, Jerry's marriage with Dorothy gradually deteriorates and they eventually separate.

text: During a Monday Night Football game between the Cardinals and the Dallas Cowboys, Rod plays well but appears to receive a serious injury when catching a winning touchdown, securing a spot for the Cardinals in the playoffs. He recovers, however, and dances for the wildly cheering crowd. Afterwards, Jerry and Rod embrace in front of other athletes and sports agents and show how their relationship has progressed from a strictly business one to a close personal one, which was one of the points Jerry made in his mission statement. Jerry then flies back home to meet Dorothy. He then speaks for several minutes, telling her that he loves her and wants her in his life, which she accepts. Rod later appears on Roy Firestone's sports show. Unbeknownst to him, Jerry has secured him an $11.2 million contract with the Cardinals allowing him to finish his pro football career in Arizona. The visibly emotional Rod proceeds to thank everyone and extends warm gratitude to Jerry. Jerry speaks with several other pro athletes, some of whom have read his earlier mission statement and respect his work with Rod.

text: The movie ends with Ray throwing a baseball up in the air surprising Jerry. Jerry then discusses Ray's possible future career in the sports industry with Dorothy.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Tom Cruise as Gerald "Jerry" Maguire. Cameron Crowe originally wrote the screenplay for Tom Hanks. Crowe took so long to write the screenplay that by the time the film was ready to be made, he felt Hanks was too old to play the part.[6]
Cuba Gooding Jr. as Rodney "Rod" Tidwell
Renée Zellweger as Dorothy Boyd
Kelly Preston as Avery Bishop
Jerry O'Connell as Frank "Cush" Cushman
Jay Mohr as Robert "Bob" Sugar
Regina King as Marcee Tidwell
Bonnie Hunt as Laurel Boyd
Jonathan Lipnicki as Raymond "Ray" Boyd
Lisa Stahl Sullivan as Jerry's ex-girlfriend
Todd Louiso as Chad the Nanny
Jeremy Suarez as Tyson Tidwell
Aries Spears as Teepee Tidwell
Toby Huss as Steven "Steve" Remo
Eric Stoltz as Ethan Valhere
Beau Bridges as Matthew "Matt" Cushman (uncredited)
Glenn Frey as Dennis Wilburn
Drake Bell as Jesse Remo
Jared Jussim as Dicky Fox

tag: ul

text: Janet Jackson auditioned and was initially accepted for the role of Marcee Tidwell, though it later went to Regina King, who previously co-starred in Janet Jackson's debut film Poetic Justice. Artie Lange filmed a scene for the movie but was edited out of the final cut.[7][8] Jackson is referenced twice in the film, with a Janet poster seen hanging in Teepee's room and Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character Rod Tidwell asking "What Have You Done for Me Lately?", paying homage to Jackson's hit of the same name.[9][10]

text: Patricia Arquette, Bridget Fonda, Winona Ryder and Marisa Tomei were all considered for the part of Dorothy.[6] Mira Sorvino was also considered for Dorothy but she demanded too much money.[6]

text: Damon Wayans and Mykelti Williamson were considered for the role of Rod Tidwell.[6]

text: Diane Lane was considered for the role of Avery Bishop.[6]

text: Billy Wilder was considered for the part of Jerry's mentor Dicky Fox.[6]

text: Cameos[edit]

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

tag: table

text: Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr., former NFL quarterbacks Drew Bledsoe, Troy Aikman, and Warren Moon, German ice skater Katarina Witt, then-current Dallas Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer, and former Detroit Lions coach Wayne Fontes play themselves in the film.

text: Other NFL players that make cameos as themselves are Tim McDonald, Johnnie Morton, Rick Mirer, Rob Moore, Ki-Jana Carter, Herman Moore, Art Monk, Kerry Collins, and Dean Biasucci.

text: Sportscasters Al Michaels, Frank Gifford, Roy Firestone, Mike Tirico, and Dan Dierdorf also make cameos.

text: Former NBA basketball player Brent Barry is featured in the film as an athlete who refuses to sign an autograph for a young boy.

text: Actresses portraying ex-girlfriends of Maguire include Lucy Liu, Ivana Miličević, Alison Armitage, Emily Procter and Stacey Williams. Reagan Gomez-Preston also had a minor role in the film as part of the Tidwell family.

text: Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell makes a brief appearance in the film as a copier store clerk.

text: Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay makes a cameo as Jerry Maguire's boss.

text: Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner is seen briefly as an SMI CEO as Maguire departs the company.

text: Product placement[edit]

text: Tristar received merchandise and marketing services of over $1.5 million from Reebok in exchange for incorporating a commercial into the film and depicting the Reebok brand within certain agreed-upon standards; when the film was theatrically released, the commercial had been left out and a tirade including "broadsides against Reebok" was included.[11] When the film aired on television, the Reebok commercial had been embedded into the film as originally agreed upon.[11]

text: Release[edit]

text: Box office[edit]

text: The film debuted at number one.[12] It earned $17,084,296 its opening weekend, and eventually grossed $153,952,592 in North American box office and approximately $119.6 million overseas for a $273,552,592 worldwide total, on a budget of $50 million.[1] It is the ninth top-grossing film of 1996 and the fourth highest-grossing romantic drama film of all time.[13]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: The film received critical acclaim, with an 82% positive reviews on the film-critics aggregate Rotten Tomatoes.[14] Cuba Gooding Jr. won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rod Tidwell, the Arizona Cardinals football player who sticks with Maguire. Cruise was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the movie marked Renée Zellweger's breakout role. The film itself was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and crew members on the film were nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Film Editing awards.

text: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3/4 stars, writing that there "are so many subplots that Jerry Maguire seems too full" and also commented that the film "starts out looking cynical and quickly becomes a heartwarmer."[15] Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote "An exceptionally tasty contempo comedic romance, Jerry Maguire runs an unusual pattern on its way to scoring an unexpected number of emotional, social and entertaining points. Smartly written and boasting a sensational cast, Cameron Crowe's shrewdly observed third feature also gives Tom Cruise one of his very best roles..."[16] Former Green Bay Packers vice president Andrew Brandt stated that the film "accurately portrayed the cutthroat nature of the agent business, especially the lengths to which agents will go to retain or pilfer clients. It also captured the financial, emotional and psychological investment that goes far beyond negotiating contracts."[17]

text: Accolades[edit]

text:
Academy Awards

Best Actor (Cruise, nominated)
Best Editing (Hutshing, nominated)
Best Picture (nominated)
Best Screenplay – Original (Crowe, nominated)
Best Supporting Actor (Gooding Jr., won)

Chicago Film Critics Association

Best Supporting Actor (Gooding Jr., won)

Directors Guild of America

Outstanding Directing – Motion Pictures (Crowe, nominated)

Golden Globe Awards

Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Cruise, won)
Best Film – Musical or Comedy (nominated)
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture (Gooding Jr., nominated)

Image Awards

Outstanding Actor – Motion Picture (Gooding Jr., nominated)

Satellite Awards

Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Cruise, won)
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Gooding Jr., won)
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Zellweger, nominated)

Screen Actors Guild

Outstanding Actor – Motion Picture (Cruise, nominated)
Outstanding Supporting Actor (Gooding Jr., won)
Outstanding Supporting Actress (Zellweger, nominated)

Writers Guild of America

Best Screenplay – Original (Crowe, nominated)

text: The film's screenplay was later voted the 66th greatest ever written in a poll by the Writers Guild of America.[18]

text: Home media[edit]

text: Jerry Maguire was first released on VHS and Laserdisc on May 29, 1997. It is the best-selling non-Disney VHS tape of all time, with over 3 million copies sold on the first day and another 1 million on the second day and sold 1 million copies each day, including Blockbuster Video, Hollywood Video, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and many other rental stores/retail chains.[citation needed] The previews shown before the movie were My Best Friend's Wedding, Men in Black and Starship Troopers. it was re-released on VHS around late 1999, without any of the aforementioned previews.

text: The film was first released onto DVD on June 24, 1997 and around 2002 respectively in both a standard edition and a two-disc "Special Edition". While the standard edition contains no special features, the two-disc edition primarily includes deleted scenes, commentary tracks, featurettes, and a music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Secret Garden." The film was later released onto Blu-ray on September 9, 2008, with the same special features found on the second disc of the DVD "Special Edition."[19]

text: Legacy[edit]

text: Jerry Maguire spawned several popular quotations, including "Show me the Money!" (shouted repeatedly in a phone exchange between Rod Tidwell and Jerry Maguire), "You complete me," "Help me help you," "The key to this business is personal relationships" and "You had me at 'hello'" (said by Renée Zellweger's Dorothy Boyd after a lengthy romantic plea by Jerry Maguire), and "Kwan," a word used by Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Tidwell meaning love, respect, community, and money (also spelled "quan" and "quawn") to illustrate the difference between himself and other football players: "Other football players may have the coin, but they won't have the 'Kwan'." These lines are largely attributed to Cameron Crowe, director and screenwriter of the film. Zellweger said of filming the famous "hello" line, "Cameron had me say it a few different ways. It's so funny, because when I read it, I didn't get it — I thought it was a typo somehow. I kept looking at it. It was the one thing in the script that I was looking at going, 'Is that right? Can that be right? How is that right?' I thought, 'Is there a better way to say that? Am I not getting it? I just don't know how to do it.'"[20] Brandt stated in 2014 that "I definitely noticed an uptick of young people becoming interested in the agent business after Jerry Maguire".[17] "Some of what happened to the agent industry would have happened without 'Jerry,' but definitely not as fast as it did," noted Peter Schaffer, who has been a sports agent since 1988.[21]

text: In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten Top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Jerry Maguire was acknowledged as the tenth best film in the sports genre.[22][23] It was also voted by AFI as #100 on its list of 100 Passions.[24] The quotes "Show me the money!" and "You had me at 'hello'" were also ranked by AFI on its list of 100 Movie Quotes, ranked #25 and #52 respectively.[25]

text: American Film Institute Lists

text:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – #100
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:

Secret Garden – Nominated

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:

"Show me the money!" – #25
"You had me at "hello."" – #52
"You complete me." – Nominated

AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
AFI's 10 Top 10 – #10 Sports Film (also nominated Romantic Comedy)

text: In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Jerry Maguire one of the 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years.[26]

text: Soundtrack[edit]

text: The motion picture soundtrack CD includes:

text:
No.
Title
Writer(s)
Artist(s)
Length

1.
"The Magic Bus"
Pete Townshend
The Who
7:35

2.
"Sitting Still Moving Still Staring Outlooking"
Warren Defever
His Name is Alive
3:21

3.
"Getting in Tune"
Pete Townshend
The Who
4:46

4.
"Pocketful of Rainbows"
Fred Wise, Ben Weisman
Elvis Presley
3:15

5.
"World on a String"
Neil Young
Neil Young
2:25

6.
"We Meet Again" (theme from Jerry Maguire)"
Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson
3:04

7.
"The Horses"
Rickie Lee Jones, Walter Becker
Rickie Lee Jones
4:48

8.
"Secret Garden"
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
4:28

9.
"Singalong Junk"
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
2:36

10.
"Wise Up"
Aimee Mann
Aimee Mann
3:29

11.
"Momma Miss America"
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
4:05

12.
"Sandy"
Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson
4:40

13.
"Shelter from the Storm (alternate version)"
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
6:00

Total length:
54:32

text: Music not on the soundtrack[edit]

text:
AC/DC – "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)"
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass – "The Lonely Bull"
The Durutti Column – "Requiem Again"
L.V. - "The Wrong Come Up"
Nirvana – "Something in the Way"
Tom Petty – "Free Fallin'"
The Replacements – "I'll Be You"
The Rolling Stones – "Bitch"
Merrilee Rush – "Angel of the Morning"
Andy Partridge and Harold Budd – "Through the Hill"
a clip of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus performing (Mingus' piece is "Haitian Fight Song")

text: "Secret Garden," originally a Bruce Springsteen track from 1995, was re-released in 1997 after its exposure in the film and on the soundtrack, and peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100.[28][29]

text: The film was scored by director Crowe's then-wife, Nancy Wilson,[30] who is a member of the rock band Heart.


document_title: Peggy Shippen

question_text: who plays benedict arnold's wife in turn

question_tokens: who plays benedict arnold 's wife in turn

text: Peggy Shippen

text: Early life[edit]

text: Margaret Shippen was born July 11, 1760 in Philadelphia. She was nicknamed "Peggy", the fourth and youngest daughter of Edward Shippen IV and Margaret Francis, the daughter of Tench Francis, Sr..[2]  She was born into a prominent  Philadelphia family, which included two Philadelphia mayors and the founder of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Edward Shippen was a judge and member of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania;[2] the Shippen family was politically divided, and the judge was considered either a "Neutralist" or a covert "Tory " with allegiance to the British crown.[2] Peggy was the youngest child of the family, though there were two other boys born later who died in infancy. She grew up as the baby of the family and was the "family's darling."

text: Sources related that Peggy enjoyed music, doing needlework, and drawing, and participated in the study of politics. She looked up to her father and, under his tutelage, learned about politics, finance, and the forces which led to the American Revolution.

text: Courtship and marriage to Benedict Arnold[edit]

text: The British captured Philadelphia in September 1777, and the Shippen family held social gatherings at their home, in keeping with their political interests and stations.[4]  A frequent guest was John André, an officer in General William Howe's command, and he paid particular attention to Peggy.[5] The British withdrew from the city in June 1778 following France's entry into the war; André left Philadelphia with his fellow troops, but the two of them remained in contact.

text: In late summer of 1778,[6] Shippen met Arnold, the Continental military commander of Philadelphia, and he began courting her despite the differences between himself and Judge Shippen. Shortly after, Arnold sent her father a letter asking for her hand, but Shippen was skeptical of Arnold due to Arnold's legal problems.  In 1779, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania had brought eight formal charges against Arnold for corruption and malfeasance with the money of the federal and state governments, and he was subsequently convicted on two relatively minor counts.  Despite this, Edward Shippen eventually granted permission for Arnold and Peggy to marry, which took place on April 8, 1779.[7]

text: Arnold purchased Mount Pleasant on March 22, 1779, a manor home built in 1762 for Captain John Macpherson, and he deeded the property to Peggy and any future children.[8][7] The couple did not live at Mount Pleasant, however, but rented it out as an income property. The couple honeymooned at family homes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, then returned to Philadelphia to take residence at Arnold's military headquarters in the Masters-Penn mansion.

text: Espionage between the Arnolds and Major John André[edit]

text: As a newlywed, Peggy may have had contact with her "dear friend" Major André, who had become General Clinton's spy chief. She and Arnold also had close friends who were either actively Loyalist or sympathetic to that cause. Some historians believe that Peggy Shippen instigated the correspondence between Arnold and André and sent military secrets to the British before her wedding. Other suspects in Arnold's subsequent espionage ring with André were Loyalists Rev. Jonathan Odell and Joseph Stansbury.[9]

text: Arnold hired Joseph Stansbury to initiate communications in May 1779, offering his services to the British not long after he married.  General Clinton gave Major André orders to pursue the possibility, and secret communications began between André and Arnold.  The messages that they exchanged were sometimes transmitted through Peggy's actions; letters written in her hand also include coded communications written by Benedict Arnold in invisible ink.

text: Enraged by his treatment in Philadelphia, General Arnold resigned his command there in March 1779. Pursuant to the secret communications with the British, he sought and obtained the command of West Point, a critical American defense post in the highlands of the Hudson River.  Peggy and their infant son Edward Shippen Arnold (born 19 Mar 1780) joined him there in a home on the Hudson two miles south of West Point. General Arnold systematically weakened the defenses of West Point with the intent of making it easier for the British to capture.

text: On Thursday, September 21, 1780, General Arnold met with André on the shores of the Hudson River and gave him documents and maps about the fortifications at West Point in anticipation of the British capture of that site. On Saturday, September 23, André was arrested as he rode towards British territory, the documents were discovered, and the plot was exposed.  On Monday, September 25, Arnold received a note announcing André's capture and possession of treasonous papers and maps. That same morning, General George Washington was planning to meet Arnold at his home, two miles south of West Point. Arnold first dashed upstairs to Peggy, then fled, eventually reaching the HMS Vulture on the Hudson River.[10]

text: Peggy Shippen Arnold was then dressing in anticipation of hosting a breakfast for Washington and his party. Possibly based on a brief discussion with her husband, she pretended hysteria in order to falsely convince General Washington and his staff that she had nothing to do with her husband's betrayal.  The delay caused by her histrionics may have allowed Arnold time to escape, leaving Peggy with their infant son.  Fearing for her safety, she traveled to Philadelphia to stay with her family.  She also played the innocent when asked about her husband, even though she knew his whereabouts.  Philadelphia authorities soon found a letter from André to Peggy written from British-occupied New York—the so-called "millinery letter"—and seized upon it as proof that Arnold's wife had been complicitous in the treason. That led the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania to banish her from Philadelphia. In November 1780, her father escorted Peggy and her infant son to the shores of the Hudson where she boarded a boat to New York City to join Arnold.[11][12]

text: After a military trial, Major André was condemned to death as a common spy and was hanged at Tappan, New York.  He was later re-interred in London's Westminster Abbey.[13]

text: After the Revolution[edit]

text: Hostilities appeared to be winding down in North America after Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, and the Arnolds left for London on December 15, 1781—including their second child James Robertson (born in August)—arriving January 22, 1782.[14]

text: Peggy was initially welcomed warmly in England, as was her husband; she was presented at court to the queen on February 10, 1782 by Lady Amherst. Queen Charlotte awarded her an annuity of 100 pound sterling for the maintenance of her children, including those not yet born. King George III also presented her with £350 "obtained for her services, which were meritorious."[15] A girl (Margaret) and a boy (George), born in 1783 and 1784 respectively, died in infancy while the Arnolds lived in London.

text: Arnold left for a business opportunity in 1784 and sent to Connecticut for his three sons Benedict, Richard, and Henry (by his first wife) to join him in Saint John, New Brunswick.  During Arnold's stay in New Brunswick, Peggy Shippen Arnold gave birth to their third surviving child Sophia Matilda Arnold, while her husband may have fathered an illegitimate child (John Sage) in New Brunswick.[16] Peggy sailed to Saint John to join her husband in 1787, leaving her two older sons with a private family in London; in New Brunswick, Peggy gave birth to son George in 1787; their last child William Fitch was born in 1794 after their return to London.

text: In 1789, she returned briefly to Philadelphia, accompanied by her infant son George and a maid, to visit with her parents and family. She was treated coldly by Philadelphians in spite of her father's considerable influence.[14] Peggy sailed back to New Brunswick with young George in the spring of 1790, and from there returned to England with Arnold in late December 1791. Their departure was unhappy, with mobs gathering on their property to protest against them and calling them "traitors."

text: After Arnold died in 1801, Peggy auctioned the contents of their home, the home itself, and many of her personal possessions to pay off his debts.  She died in London in 1804, reportedly of cancer, and was buried with her husband at St. Mary's Church in Battersea on August 25, 1804.

text: Role in conspiracy[edit]

text: Historians are unanimous in her complicity--and she accepted a reward for her services from the king. Her family in Philadelphia denied everything. Arnold's biographer Nathaniel Philbrick argues:

text: James Parton, a biographer of Aaron Burr, published an account in the 19th century, after all of the principal actors had died, implying that Peggy Shippen Arnold had manipulated or persuaded Benedict to change sides.  The basis for this claim was interviews that he conducted with Theodosia Prevost, the widow of Jacques Marcus Prevost who later married Burr, and notes later made by Burr.  While en route to Philadelphia from West Point in 1780, Peggy Shippen Arnold visited with Prevost at Paramus, New Jersey. According to Parton, she unburdened herself to Prevost, claiming that she "was heartily tired of all the theatricals she was exhibiting", referring to her histrionics at West Point.[18] According to Burr's notes, Shippen Arnold "was disgusted with the American cause" and "through unceasing perseverance, she had ultimately brought the general into an arrangement to surrender West Point."[18]

text: When these allegations were first published, the Shippen family countered with allegations of improper behavior on Burr's part.  They claimed that Burr rode with Peggy Shippen Arnold in the carriage to Philadelphia after her stay with Mrs. Prevost, and that he fabricated the allegation because she refused advances that he made during the ride.[18] Arnold biographer Willard Sterne Randall suggests that Burr's version has a more authentic ring to it: first, Burr waited until all were dead before it could be published; and second, Burr was not in the carriage on the ride to Philadelphia.  Randall also notes that ample further evidence has since come to light showing that Peggy Shippen Arnold played an active role in the conspiracy.[19] British documents from 1792 show that Mrs. Arnold was paid £350 for handling secret dispatches.[20]

text: Family[edit]

text: Peggy Shippen had seven children with Benedict Arnold, of whom five survived to adulthood:

text:
Edward Shippen Arnold (March 19, 1780 – December 13, 1813) Lieutenant.  Died in Bengal, India; unmarried and childless.
James Robertson Arnold (August 28, 1781 – December 27, 1854) Major-General.  Died in London, England; married to Virginia Goodrich, no children.
Sophia Matilda Arnold (July 28, 1785 – June 10, 1828)  Died in London, England.  Married to Pownoll Phipps in India, two sons and three daughters.
George Arnold (second of that name) (September 5, 1787 – November 1, 1828) Lieutenant-Colonel.  Died in Bengal, India; married to Ann Martin Brown, one son.
William Fitch Arnold (June 25, 1794 – November 17, 1846) Captain.  Died in Buckinghamshire, England; married to Elizabeth Cecilia Ruddach, four daughters and two sons.

text: In popular culture[edit]

text: Peggy Shippen is portrayed by Erin McGathy and Winona Ryder in the Drunk History episode on Philadelphia.[21] She is also portrayed in the TV miniseries George Washington by Megan Gallagher, in the TV movie Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor by Flora Montgomery, and in the Revolutionary War drama Turn: Washington's Spies by Ksenia Solo. Shippen was also the subject of two historical novels: Peggy by Lois Duncan (copyright 1970) and The Traitor's Wife by Allison Pataki (copyright 2014).


document_title: It Was Almost Like a Song

question_text: who wrote it was almost like a song

question_tokens: who wrote it was almost like a song

text: It Was Almost Like a Song

text:
"It Was Almost Like a Song"

Single by Ronnie Milsap

from the album It Was Almost Like a Song

B-side
"It Don't Hurt to Dream"

Released
May 1977 (U.S.)

Format
7"

Recorded
April 1977

Genre
Country, pop

Length
3:35

Label
RCA 10976

Songwriter(s)
Hal David and Archie Jordan

Producer(s)
Tom Collins and Ronnie Milsap

Ronnie Milsap singles chronology

"Let My Love Be Your Pillow"
(1976)
"It Was Almost Like a Song"
(1977)
"What a Difference You've Made in My Life"
(1977)

"Let My Love Be Your Pillow"
(1976)
"It Was Almost Like a Song"
(1977)
"What a Difference You've Made in My Life"
(1977)

text: "It Was Almost Like a Song" is a song written by Hal David and Archie Jordan, and recorded by American country music singer Ronnie Milsap. It was released in May 1977 as the first single and title track from the album It Was Almost Like a Song. It became one of the greatest hits of his recording career upon its release in 1977.

text: In July 1977, "It Was Almost Like a Song" was Milsap's eighth No. 1 song on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Songs chart.[1] The song also became his first Billboard Hot 100 chart entry, peaking No. 16. and also on Billboard's Hot Adult Contemporary Singles chart, where it peaked at No. 7.[2]

text: "It Was Almost Like a Song" provided the basis for the title of Milsap's biography, Almost Like a Song, which he co-wrote with Tom Carter.

text: Chart performance[edit]

text:
Chart (1977)
Peak
position

US Hot Country Songs (Billboard)[3]
1

US Billboard Hot 100[4]
16

US Adult Contemporary (Billboard)[5]
7

Canadian RPM Country Tracks
12

Canadian RPM Top Singles
7

Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks
6


document_title: Wallah (Arabic)

question_text: what is the meaning of wallah in arabic

question_tokens: what is the meaning of wallah in arabic

text: Wallah (Arabic)

text:
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text: Wallah (Arabic: وَٱللّٰه, i.e. by God) is an Arabic expression meaning "I swear on Gods name" used to make a promise or express great credibility on an expression typically used as arabic slang. The literal translation is 'certainly' or to be certain. It is considered a sin among Muslims to use this phrase and follow it up with a lie. Also, some Muslims argue that this is one of the few valid ways of making a promise, the variant "I promise on myself" or "I promise on my own soul" not being allowed, in contrast to "I promise by the one who holds my soul". i.e. God. An alternative is Wallaahi (وَٱللّٰهِ), "By my God", often contracted by non-Arab populations in Africa to Wallai. Another meaning is "Really?", "Is that so?" (referring to "Do you swear on it?", used in spoken Arabic), "By God!" (this meaning has been adopted by Modern Hebrew slang as well).

text: The Spanish language word for approval 'olé' may have been derived from Andalusi Arabic during the Muslim rule of Iberia.

text:
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document_title: Holes (novel)

question_text: why did the treasure have stanley yelnats name on it

text: Holes (novel)

text: Plot[edit]

text: This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (October 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: Present day[edit]

text: Stanley Yelnats IV is a 14-year-old boy from a hard-working but poor family that is allegedly affected by a curse of bad luck, which they blame on Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather".[4] Stanley's latest stroke of misfortune occurs when he is mistakenly convicted of the theft of a pair of athletic shoes once owned by Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston, which had been donated to a homeless shelter to raise money.

text: Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile imprisonment and disciplinary facility which is ironically in the middle of a sterile desert. As a punishment, the inmates of the camp have to dig 1 hole a day 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep to 'build character'. Stanley soon begins to suspect that they are not digging to build character, but rather to find something hidden beneath the dry, rocky ground.

text: 19th-century curse[edit]

text: Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather", Elya Yelnats, is in love with a girl named Myra Menke, but a much older pig farmer named Igor Barkov also wants to marry her, offering Myra's father his heaviest pig in exchange for Myra's hand in marriage.

text: Desperate to impress Myra and her father, Elya goes to his friend Madame Zeroni for help. She warns him that Myra is not intelligent and will not be a good wife, and advises him to move to America, as her son has. She gives him a tiny piglet, telling him to carry the piglet up a mountain every day, and let it drink from a stream while singing to it. Each day the water will make it grow bigger, and Elya will grow stronger. On the last day, after he carries the pig one last time, he must carry Madame Zeroni herself up the mountain to do the same, as he will then be strong enough to carry her. However, Zeroni warns him that if Elya does not carry her up the mountain, his family will be cursed.

text: Elya follows her directions, and the piglet grows to a large size, but he does not carry the pig up on the final day in order to have time to clean up. Elya nearly wins Myra as his bride, but his pig is revealed to be the same weight as Igor's. Since the pigs weigh the same, Myra is given the choice between Elya and Igor, but fails to decide. When Myra has Elya and Igor try to guess what number she's thinking of in order to win her, Elya walks away in disgust. Elya, forgetting his promise to Madame Zeroni, moves to America to start a new life, falls in love, and marries, but he is beset by Zeroni's curse. The song that he sang to the piglet becomes a lullaby that is passed down among Elya's descendants, who are all named Stanley due to its palindromic relation to the name Yelnats.

text: Kissin' Kate Barlow[edit]

text: In the year 1888, the town of Green Lake is a flourishing lakeside community. Katherine "Kate" Barlow, the local teacher, falls in love with Sam, an African-American onion seller, while rejecting advances from wealthy resident Charles "Trout" Walker (named due to the smell of his feet). There is an uproar in the town after Hattie Parker sees Kate and Sam kissing in an alley, proclaiming God will punish them. After no children arrive at the schoolhouse the following day, a mob led by Trout Walker ransacks and burns the schoolhouse. Kate realizes that Sam is in danger of being lynched and seeks the help of the sheriff. The sheriff is drunk and states that Sam is to be hanged in accordance with the law, but will spare Sam if she gives him a kiss. Kate leaves in disgust. She finds Sam and they attempt an escape across the lake in Sam's rowboat, but Walker and the mob intercept them with Walker's motorboat, ramming the smaller vessel and sinking it. Sam is shot and killed in the water, while Kate is "rescued" against her wishes. Following the death of Sam, no rain falls ever again on the town, and the reader is asked: 'who did God punish?'

text: Kate becomes a prominent outlaw, who leaves a kiss-mark in lipstick on her first dead victim, earning her the nickname "Kissin' Kate Barlow." Kate robs Stanley's great-grandfather, Stanley Yelnats I, of his entire fortune, but rather than kill him, she abandons him in the desert that was previously Green Lake. Miraculously, he survives after he is found by lizard and snake hunters, who believe Stanley I to be crazy. Stanley I is subsequently taken to the hospital where he stays for a number of weeks. During his hospital stay, Stanley I falls in love with the nurse that is caring for him, and the two later marry.

text: Twenty years later, Kate returns to an old cabin on the former lakeside and is tracked down by Trout and his wife, who are bankrupt and desperate for money. They try to force her to reveal where she buried her loot, but she is bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard and dies. As she dies, she taunts them by saying, "start digging". The Walkers are left to dig the entire area in order to find the buried treasure.

text: Camp Green Lake[edit]

text: The inmates at Camp Green Lake are forced to dig cylindrical holes five feet deep and five feet wide, which the warden says "builds their character." They are promised the rest of their day off if they find anything that the Warden considers "interesting". Stanley finds a fossil, but Mr Pendanski tells him that the Warden "isn't interested in fossils", leading Stanley to suspect they are looking for something in particular. During one dig, Stanley finds one of Barlow's lipstick tubes (though he doesn't recognize it for what it is), but he pawns it off to X-Ray, the ringleader of Tent D, who convinces him that he deserves it more than Stanley. The Warden is excited by the discovery and orders them to greatly enlarge X-Ray's hole (the wrong hole) and to sift through the dirt from it for several weeks.

text: Meanwhile, Stanley and Zero, the smallest inmate in Tent D, who got his nickname because "he has nothing in his head", become friends. Stanley agrees to teach Zero how to read, and in return, Zero digs Stanley's hole part of the time. The other boys eventually become jealous after seeing Stanley getting help, eventually resulting in a fight. The Warden and the staff arrive and, learning that Zero has been assisting Stanley with digging in return for receiving education, mock him. The argument culminates in Zero angrily hitting Mr. Pendanski with a shovel and running away, and the camp staff decide to erase their records of him and let him die in the desert. A few days later, Stanley follows Zero and finds him living under the remains of Sam's boat, eating very old jars of Kate's spiced peaches, which he calls "Sploosh". Stanley notices a mountain resembling a human fist giving the thumbs up sign, and recalls that Stanley Yelnats I claimed to find "refuge on God’s thumb". On the mountain, Zero admits that he was the one who stole "Sweet Feet" Livingston's shoes.

text: Atop the mountain, Stanley discovers a field of onions that was once Sam's. The boys eat the onions and find water by digging in the ground, and Stanley sings Madame Zeroni's song to Zero, Zeroni's descendant, unknowingly breaking the curse. Stanley suggests that they return to the hole where Stanley found the lipstick to find the buried treasure. They find a suitcase buried in the hole, but they are captured by the Warden, and surrounded by a group of lethal yellow-spotted lizards. A stalemate develops: they cannot move, but the lizards prevent the Warden's staff from approaching them. The lizards do not bite Stanley and Zero because they are repelled by the onions the boys have been eating. They remain in the hole until the next morning, when an attorney arrives demanding Stanley's release, having received testimony that gives him an alibi during the time the shoes were stolen. The Warden tries to claim they stole the suitcase from her, but Zero reveals that the name 'Stanley Yelnats' is written on it, as the suitcase had belonged to Stanley's great-grandfather. Fearing that the warden will kill Zero if he leaves him behind, Stanley refuses to leave the camp unless Zero can come along. The attorney orders the Warden to get Zero's file, but the camp staff are naturally unable to find it, and Zero is also released.

text: Stanley's family open the case, discovering the jewels, deeds, stocks and promissory notes stolen from Stanley Yelnats I. Using the money raised from the bonds, Stanley's family buys a new house and Zero hires a team of investigators to find his missing mother; meanwhile, the drought at Green Lake is brought to an end by rainfall. The family's luck seems to change as if in response to Stanley's fulfillment of his ancestor's promise (a suggestion left purposely ambiguous by the narration). In a final scene, Clyde Livingston and his wife, along with the Yelnats and Zeroni families, celebrate the success of Stanley's father's antidote to foot odor, composed of preserved and fermented spiced peaches and onions and named "Sploosh" by Zero. The Warden is forced to sell Green Lake to "a national organization dedicated to the well-being of young girls", which turns it into a Girl Scout camp.

text: Characters[edit]

text: Camp Green Lake[edit]

text:
Stanley Yelnats IV (also known as "Caveman" by the rest of the campers, but referred to in the book by his proper name): Stanley is a 14-year-old boy who does not have any friends from school and is often picked on by his classmates and the school bully. Stanley's family is cursed with bad luck, and although they do not have much money, they always try to remain hopeful and look on the bright side of things. Stanley shares these traits with his family and, although he does not have a lot of self-confidence, he is not easily depressed, a characteristic that helps him adjust to the horrendous conditions of Camp Green Lake. However, he has a bad habit of blaming his great great grandfather when he gets in trouble. This habit made him impudent.[5] As the book progresses, Stanley slowly gains strength. He identifies the people who threaten him, like the Warden, and while he tries not to get in trouble he also stands up for himself and his friends and family. Stanley rebels for the rights of his friends when he steals Mr. Sir's truck to look for his friend Zero in the dry lake bed.[6]
Zero (Hector Zeroni): Zero is known to be the best digger at Camp Green Lake. So often, he is considered to be "stupid" or a mere nothing by the other boys and the counselors at the lake. He lacks an education, meaning he cannot really read nor write. However, he is smart and manages to stand for himself in the face of adversity. Typically he is noted as the character that hardly speaks due to the fact that he is wary of those who mock him. He is said to always have a scowl on his face and does not like to answer questions. Zero is shown to be an honest character after becoming close friends with Stanley. Zero is the one who steals the shoes that Stanley was arrested for and accused of stealing. He is the great-great-great-grandson of Madame Zeroni, the woman who put a curse on Stanley's family. He has been homeless for most of his life, as well as being abandoned by his mother at a very young age. Although he suffers quite a bit, he always seems to persevere and come out on top.
X-Ray (Rex Washburn): X-Ray is the unofficial head of the boys in Group D. X-Ray decides that Stanley will be called Caveman and fixes the order of the line for water. X-Ray maintains his position as the leader of the boys even though he is one of the smallest and can barely see without his glasses. He convinces Stanley to give him the lipstick tube that Stanley finds in his hole so that he can have the day off instead of Stanley. X-Ray is able to maintain his position at the head of the group through a system of rewards and allies. Every time that Stanley does something nice for X-Ray, X-Ray is nice to Stanley and stands up for him when the other boys pick on him. When Stanley becomes friends with Zero, however, X-Ray's system is threatened and he becomes hostile towards Stanley. His nickname X-ray comes from it being pig Latin of his actual name, Rex.
Squid (Alan): Squid is a member of Group D at Camp Green Lake. He is often the one for taunting Stanley for sending and receiving letters to his mother. Just like X-Ray, Squid is very tough but very subservient to X-Ray's rules and directions.
Magnet (José): Another member of Group D. Magnet earned his nickname because of his ability to steal, he got into Camp Green Lake for stealing animals from the zoo and refers to his fingers as "little magnets".
Armpit (Theodore Johnson): One of X-Ray's close friends at camp, he pushes Stanley when Stanley calls him Theodore.
Zig Zag (Ricky): Zigzag is described to being the tallest kid of Group D, constantly looking like he has been electrocuted, with frizzy hair. Stanley often thinks he is the weirdest and craziest kid at Camp Green Lake. Zigzag is the one who hit Stanley on the head with a shovel and did not apologize for doing so. Zigzag suffers from paranoia, highlighting his displayed "craziness".
The Warden (Ms. Walker): Running Camp Green Lake, she is known to be violent, abusive, and quite mean. She uses her power and privilege to get what she wants and make members of the camp to do as she pleases. She has hidden cameras, using them to spy on the members of the camp. She is often thought of to have hidden cameras in the showers, causing Stanley to be paranoid whenever he took a shower, rushing out as fast as possible. She wears nail polish traced with rattlesnake venom, and scratches those when they displease or go against what she says. She has the members of Camp Green Lake digging holes to look for Kate Barlow's hidden treasure. She is the granddaughter of Charles "Trout" Walker.
Mr. Sir: One of the counselors at Camp Green Lake, he is constantly eating sunflower seeds. He took up this habit after deciding to quit smoking. He is known to be mean and tough.
Mr. Pendanski: In Group D at Camp Green Lake Mr. Pendanski is in charge. Mr. Pendanski may seem friendly, but he is just as mean as the Warden and Mr. Sir. He never stops making fun of Zero.

text: Town of Green Lake[edit]

text:
Katherine Barlow (Kissin' Kate Barlow): Katherine Barlow is a sweet and intelligent woman who teaches in a one-room school house on Green Lake one hundred and ten years before it becomes Camp Green Lake. She falls in love with Sam, the man who sells onions in the town. Although the rest of the white people in the town are racist and enforce rules that prohibit black people from going to school, Kate, who is white, does not care about the color of a person's skin and she loves Sam for the person that he is. When Kate and Sam kiss, the townsfolk grow angry and kill Sam. Kate is devastated by Sam's death and becomes Kissin' Kate Barlow, one of the most feared outlaws in the West. Kissin' Kate always leaves her mark by kissing someone when she finishes killing them; if she had only robbed them, she would leave them in the hot desert letting the yellow-spotted lizards bite the victim with their venomous teeth and kill them. She is the outlaw responsible for robbing Stanley Yelnats I (Stanley's ancestor). Kate dies when a yellow spotted lizard bites her foot. The lipstick tube that Stanley finds during his second week at Camp Green was owned by Kate Barlow.
Sam: Sam is an African-American farmer in the town Green Lake, Texas who grows onions. He believes onions are the cure to everything and makes many remedies from onions. He also has an immense love for his donkey, Mary Lou. His relationship with Kate begins when Sam exchanges his onions for some jars of peaches. He is killed by the townspeople for kissing Kate. His death is led by Charles "Trout" Walker (Trout Walker).
Charles "Trout" Walker: Charles "Trout" Walker is an extremely spoiled son of a rich family in Green Lake. He gets upset when Kate denies his request to date her. This angers him, and adds on to the reason of causing him to lead the townspeople to burn down the schoolhouse and kill Sam. His nickname Trout comes because of his foot fungus that causes his feet to smell like dead fish. He is The Warden's grandfather, which upon his death, opens up the juvenile detention camp to increase the efficiency of finding Kate Barlow's hidden treasure.
Stanley Yelnats I: Stanley Yelnats I is the son of Elya Yelnats as well as the great-grandfather of Stanley Yelnats IV. He was the one whose treasure was stolen by Kate Barlow while he was moving from New York to California. He is known to have survived by climbing to the top of a thumb-shaped mountain (God's Thumb) which happens to be Sam's old onion field.

text: Mid-1800s Latvia[edit]

text:
Elya Yelnats: Elya is the great-great-grandfather of Stanley. He was often referred to as his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather", constantly being blamed for everything that goes wrong in Stanley's life. He is considered to be the reason why the Yelnats family has such bad luck. After he fell in love with the woman in Latvia, he travels to America, forgetting to go through with the promise he made to an old woman named Madame Zeroni. This causes generations of bad luck to trickle down the Yelnats family tree. However, he does pass down an important song that Madame Zeroni taught him in Latvia.
Madame Zeroni: Madame Zeroni is the great-great-great-grandmother of Hector Zeroni (Zero). She is great friends with Elya Yelnats, and she gives him a pig. Because Elya breaks his promise of carrying her to the top of the mountain, she is considered to be the one who put a "curse" on the Yelnats family.
Myra Menke: Myra is the most beautiful girl in the Latvian village of Elya and Madame Zeroni. Madame Zeroni compares her to a flowerpot. Myra's father promised to award her hand in marriage to whichever suitor can raise the fattest pig. When the pigs were the same size, Myra asked Elya and Igor Barkov to guess a number between 1 and 10, showing her inability to make her own decisions.
Igor Barkov: Igor was Elya's competitor for the hand of Myra Menke. He was already old and fat, but was a successful pig farmer.

text: Minor characters[edit]

text:
Mr. Yelnats (Stanley Yelnats III): Mr. Yelnats is Stanley's father. He is an inventor and quite smart, but extremely unlucky. He attempts to discover a way to recycle old sneakers and because of this, the Yelnats' apartment smells bad. However, he eventually discovers a cure to ridding foot odor and is able to hire a lawyer, Ms. Morengo, to get Stanley out of Camp Green Lake.
Mrs. Yelnats: Mrs. Yelnats is Stanley's mother. She does not believe in curses but always points out the terrible luck that the Yelnats go through.

text: Setting[edit]

text: Camp Green Lake is located on a dried-up lake in the U.S. state of Texas.[7] The area is not green and there is no lake, besides the fact that there is such a little amount of shade (two oak trees) which are owned by the Warden. Camp Green Lake is a parched barren place with the scorching sun above them with hardly any clouds, so the sun is always shining, making the environment much hotter. Camp Green Lake is a juvenile detention center, where inmates spend most of their time digging holes. The majority of the book takes place between the past and present. Protagonists deal with flashbacks existing from pre-dried up Green Lake to Latvia (mid-1800s) back to modern day Camp Green Lake.

text: Film adaptation[edit]

text: In 2003, Walt Disney Pictures released a film version of Holes, which was directed by Andrew Davis and written by Louis Sachar.[8]

text: Sequels[edit]

text: Two companion novels have followed Holes: Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake (2003) and Small Steps (2006).[9]

text: Stanley Yelnats's Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake[edit]

text: As Louis Sachar states: "Should you ever find yourself at Camp Green Lake—or somewhere similar—this is the guide for you." Written from Stanley's point of view, the book offers advice on everything from scorpions, rattlesnakes, yellow-spotted lizards, etc.[10]

text: Small Steps[edit]

text: In this sequel to Holes, former inmate Armpit is now 17 and struggling with the challenges facing an African American teenager with a criminal history. A new friendship with Ginny, who has cerebral palsy, a reunion with former friend X-Ray, a ticket-scalping scheme, a beautiful pop singer, and a frame-up all test Armpit’s resolve to "Just take small steps and keep moving forward".[11]