Go Set a Watchman: Part 2

by Harper Lee
This novel was author Harper Lee's first attempt at telling the story of Jean Louise Finch and her Southern childhood. After receiving feedback from her editor, Lee reworked the story into the widely beloved To Kill a Mockingbird. More than half a century after that novel's worldwide success, readers have a chance to see how it all began.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

Here is a link to our lists for To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. proportion
    relation with respect to comparative quantity or magnitude
    What saved it from becoming another grubby little Alabama community was that Maycomb’s proportion of professional people ran high: one went to Maycomb to have his teeth pulled, his wagon fixed, his heart listened to, his money deposited, his mules vetted, his soul saved, his mortgage extended.
  2. monotonous
    tediously repetitious or lacking in variety
    The same families married the same families until relationships were hopelessly entangled and the members of the community looked monotonously alike.
  3. bearing
    the direction or path along which something moves or lies
    Its streets were not only paved, they were named (Adeline Avenue, for Miss Adeline Clay), but the older residents refrained from using street names—the road that runs by the Tompkins Place was sufficient to get one’s bearings.
  4. desperado
    a bold outlaw
    “Just fine,” she said, and wondered who else in Maycomb still remembered Scout Finch, juvenile desperado, hell-raiser extraordinary.
  5. felony
    a serious crime, such as murder or arson
    Nobody but Uncle Jack, perhaps, who sometimes embarrassed her unmercifully in front of company with a tinkling recitative of her childhood felonies.
  6. eccentricity
    strange and unconventional behavior
    Any reference to her personal eccentricities, even from Henry, made her shy.
  7. dim
    lacking clarity or distinctness
    In the dim past, Atticus had owned an old canvas-top touring car, and once when he was taking Jem, Henry, and Jean Louise swimming, the car rolled over a particularly bad hump in the road and deposited Jem without.
  8. serene
    not agitated
    Atticus drove serenely on until they reached Barker’s Eddy, because Jean Louise had no intention of advising her father that Jem was no longer present, and she prevented Henry from doing so by catching his finger and bending it back.
  9. delirious
    experiencing hallucinations
    From the time she threw rocks at him; when she almost blew her head off playing with gunpowder; when she would spring upon him from behind, catch him in a hard half nelson, and make him say Calf Rope; when she was ill and delirious one summer yelling for him and Jem and Dill
  10. clench
    squeeze together tightly
    “You want to do something about it?” she asked politely, clenching her fists.
  11. outskirts
    area relatively far from the center, as of a city or town
    They made a three-point landing on the outskirts of Capetown, and she told Jem he hadn’t given her anything to say for ten minutes and she wasn’t going to play any more if he didn’t.
  12. foliage
    the collective amount of leaves of one or more plants
    They marched around the back yard, slashing at foliage, occasionally pausing to pick off a stray elephant or fight a tribe of cannibals.
  13. sulk
    be in a huff and display one's displeasure
    Once he rescued Mr. Damon from Victoria Falls while she stood around and sulked because all she had to do was hold the rope that held Jem.
  14. paroxysm
    a sudden uncontrollable attack
    Sin, Jesus, Christ, sorrow, salvation, success, were key words they listened for each night, and their attention was rewarded in two ways: in those days no minister could get through a sermon without using them all, and they were assured of muffled paroxysms of muffled delight at least seven times an evening; secondly, because they paid such strict attention to Reverend Moorehead, Jem, Dill, and she were thought to be the best-behaved children in the congregation.
  15. pince-nez
    spectacles clipped to the nose by a spring
    Jem clipped invisible pince-nez to his nose, cleared his throat, and said, “The text for the day, my brethren, is from the Psalms: ‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, O ye gates.’”
  16. menacing
    threatening evil or danger
    “Now listen here, Dill Pickle Harris,” she said menacingly. “I haven’t done a blessed thing this whole morning. You’ve been the Amen Corner, you sang a solo, and you took up collection. It’s my time, now.”
  17. divest
    remove clothes
    She divested herself of her overalls, her only garment.
  18. ominous
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
    Jem said they had better shoo the fish down to one side of the pool lest they hurt one, and they were leaning over the side rustling the water when an ominous voice behind them said, “Whoo—”
  19. intone
    recite musically; recite as a chant or a psalm
    As her head went beneath the surface she heard Jem intoning, “Jean Louise Finch, I baptize you in the name of—”
  20. disentangle
    extricate from a twisted mass
    Dill’s efforts to disentangle himself with dignity were only moderately successful: he rose from the pool like a small fantastical water monster, covered with green slime and dripping sheet.
  21. stark
    complete or extreme
    When he dropped his coat over her shoulders she realized she was standing stark naked in the presence of a preacher.
  22. intricate
    having many complexly arranged elements; elaborate
    She watched big scarecrow fingers perform the intricate business of pushing pearl buttons through holes too small for them, and she marveled at the power in Calpurnia’s hands.
  23. multitude
    a large indefinite number
    The steps to the Landing were called, of course, the Leap-Year Steps, and when Jean Louise was a child and attended the annual reunions, she and multitudes of cousins would drive their parents to the brink of the bluff worrying about them playing on the steps until the children were caught and divided into two categories, swimmers and nonswimmers.
  24. innocuous
    not injurious to physical or mental health
    Those who could not swim were relegated to the forest side of the clearing and made to play innocuous games; swimmers had the run of the steps, supervised casually by two Negro youths.
  25. tactful
    having a sense of what is considerate in dealing with others
    She said, “You know I’ve never been exactly tactful, but I swear to God I’ve never laughed at you, Hank.
Created on Sun Sep 20 15:51:11 EDT 2015 (updated Wed Sep 12 14:15:13 EDT 2018)

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