Hypocrisy is shown in Chapter 24 through manner in which Mrs Merriweather speaks about the Mrunas and then the black people in Maycomb County.

‘Oh child, those poor Mrunas,’.

Mrs Merriweather says this when Scout asks her what they’d been studying about.

The Mrunas were an African tribe who were being subjugated by a white man known as J. Grimes Everett. He was a missionary who was trying to spread Christianity to a culture which did not need it.

Later in the chapter, Miss Merriweather begins to talk about Ton Robinson’s wife but she did not even remember his surname because Scout needed to remind her.

‘That darky’s wife. Tom’s wife, Tom -‘

This shows hypocrisy because she is showing sympathy towards the Mrunas but she does not even bother to remember the names of the black people within Maycomb County.

I think this is because she thinks as though the Mrunas are in a lesser position as they are not within the United States and therefore cannot do anything which would directly affect her. However, it was only a label from the white people given to the Mrunas as they seemed more worse off than they did so they thought intervening would contribute to their development. I feel as though the white people were only intending on taking some form of control over the Mrunas because they wanted to take advantage of them.

She uses profane words to describe black people in Maycomb because to her, they seem like a nuisance and are ruining the society due to their presence. She might think this because black people, or more specifically African-Americans, we’re at the bottom of social class and are no use to Maycomb.