As always, Atticus Finch tells it like it is when Scout demands to know what rape means in Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. When Scout initially asks her Uncle Jack "what a whore-lady was," he beats around the bush. When Scout questions Calpurnia about rape, she instructs her to ask her father. Since Scout knows she can talk with Atticus about anything, she does.
"What's rape?" I asked him that night.
Atticus looked around from behind his paper... He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent.
Scout was less than enthused by Atticus' accurate definition, and drops the matter. But it only led to another argument between Atticus and Aunt Alexandra concerning Calpurnia's place in the Finch family.
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