Chapters 28-End: What really happens under the tree? Be specific in your explanation, and be sure to explain where the knives come from.

We learn what happened under the tree from Scout but because it was dark and she was in costume from the pageant, little of what happened under the tree is clear. When Scout and Jem were on the road on the night after the pageant, she says she heard Jem yell “run.” Because she was in costume and couldn’t see where she was going, she tripped when running and then heard Jem scream because his arm was broken. Next thing Scout notices is that someone was on top of her, grabbing her costume and then that person was yanked away. After a time when she doesn’t hear anything, she gets up to try to find Jem and heard a bone rattling cough and a heavy man breathing. She knows it’s not Jem because, “my toes touched trousers, a belt buckle, buttons, something I could not identify, a collar and a face. A prickly stubble on the face told me it was not Jem’s” (Lee 352). The person she was touching could only be one of two people, Boo Radley or Bob Ewell. Because she was looking around on the ground with her foot, the person must be on the ground and the thing she could not identify may have been the knife handle in Bob Ewell’s ribcage.

The knife could have come from one of two places. It might have come from the dump according to Heck Tate’s description of what happened under the tree, or it could have come from the Radley’s kitchen. We know that the knife slashed Scout’s costume and ended up killing Bob Ewell. The knife must have been sharp enough to cut chicken wire with maybe one blow. A kitchen knife could be sharp enough to do these things but a dull knife, which would have been thrown away, and end up in the dump, would have to be sharpened.

What happened under the tree remains controversial, but a few things are for sure. Bob Ewell is dead. Jem was injured. Scout was attacked but she was saved by her costume and by someone, maybe even Boo Radley.