When Walter Cunningham is invited to come to the Finch’s house for dinner, Calpurnia scolds Scout for judging Walter on his eating habits. “Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don't you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and mighty!” She uses irony in this quote, describing Scout as acting ‘high and mighty’. Scout is quite the opposite; a young girl with little power. Scout learns that Walter has come from an unprivileged background, thanks to Calpurnia’s explanation of his behaviour. Without Calpurnia there to teach Scout, she would have continued to manipulate Walter in the schoolyard. …show more content…
When they question her as to why she speaks like a white person at home, but a black person in public, she says, “Now what if I talked white-folks' talk at church, and with my neighbours? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses." This is an allusion to Moses, a figure from the Bible. Moses was said to have liberated enslaved Hebrews from Egypt. In Maycomb, the black society was the Hebrews, enslaved by the whites. Calpurnia explains that if she spoke like a white person around other blacks, they would think she was out of place, trying to act better than