How does Alexandra feel about Calpurnia explain why this is in character for Aunt Alexandra?

Calpurnia is the Finch family’s cook, a black woman, and a mother figure to Scout. Scout describes Calpurnia as a strict, demanding, and unsentimental “tyrannical presence.” At the same time, Scout treats Calpurnia with more genuine respect and obedience than the female members of her own family, such as her Aunt Alexandra. Scout doesn’t give much thought to Calpurnia’s personal life outside her work for Scout’s family, but the reader learns that Calpurnia has a had a difficult and painful life, rarely seeing her own children while she took care of Scout and Jem. Calpurnia also functions as Scout’s, and the reader’s, window into the world of the black citizens of Maycomb. For example, Scout is able to attend Tom Robinson’s trial because the pastor of Calpurnia’s church makes a space in the courtroom for Scout and Jem to sit. Scout also accompanies Calpurnia to church, where Scout begins to understand the differences between the blacks and the whites in Maycomb, and learns a bit of Calpurnia’s history.

To modern readers, Calpurnia may seem like an all-too-familiar variation of the southern character trope of the contented slave (sometimes referred to as an “Uncle Tom” character). In fact, all of the black characters in the novel seem, at least primarily, to serve as props for the stories of the white characters that surround them. Calpurnia, like other black characters in the novel, especially Tom Robinson, is resilient, long-suffering, and grateful to the good white people around her who are not racist. While Calpurnia serves as a positive influence on Scout, teaching her important lessons about empathy, Calpurnia is also a hugely simplified character, particularly with regard to her race and the effects of prejudice on her life. Although in many ways she represents the black experience, Calpurnia is largely silent about issues of race, possibly because she understands the danger of speaking out about her experience. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel filled with simplified characters, so it may be unfair to single Calpurnia out for not representing the complexities of her circumstances. But in a novel so interested in the issue of racism, the treatment of Calpurnia is worthy of critical exploration.

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• That incident is enough to make Aunt Alexandra shut up about the Finch Family Pride, just in time for Scout to get some hints that the townspeople are obsessed with the Finch Family Shame.
• After overhearing a passerby's cryptic comment, Scout asks Atticus what rape is.
• Atticus defines it for her as "carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent" (14.5)
• Thanks for clearing that up, dad.
• Scout doesn't really get what that means, and asks Atticus why Calpurnia wouldn't explain it to her, leading to the story of how Calpurnia took Scout and Jem to her church.
• Aunt Alexandra is none too pleased to find this out, and inserts a resounding "no" into the conversation when Scout asks Atticus if she can visit Calpurnia.
• Scout talks back to her aunt and then hides in the bathroom, later returning to overhear her aunt and father quarrelling about an unnamed "her."
• Scout is worried that she's the "her," and feels "the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on" her (14.24).
• In other words, she's afraid they're going to make her wear frilly dresses for the rest of her life. Figuratively and literally.
• Eventually she figures out with relief that it's Calpurnia they're talking about: Alexandra wants to fire her, but Atticus won't hear of it.
• Jem tries to intervene by telling Scout not to get on her aunt's nerves, but little sis doesn't want her bro telling her what to do.
• This ends in a fistfight, naturally, until they make up when they overhear Aunt Alexandra launching yet another attack on their way of life.
• On the way to bed, Scout steps on something. Snake? Nope. It's Dill. And he's hungry.
• Dill tells a story (actually two, mutually contradictory stories) about how he escaped from his cruel father and journeyed to Maycomb.
• Scout brings him some food, and Jem breaks the no-tattling rule of childhood to tell Atticus.
• Hm, maybe Jem is growing up?
• After Scout has been asleep for a while, she wakes up to find Dill joining her in bed.
• Don't worry: nothing happens to heat up the G rating. They just talk about families. See, Dill felt like his mom and her new boyfriend weren't paying him any attention and didn't want him around.
• Scout's problem is that her family pays her too much attention, but realizes that she would hate it if she didn't feel like they needed her.
• Dill says that he and Scout should get themselves a baby, and tells her a story about where babies come from (no sex is involved in his account, fortunately), and they slowly doze off.
• Just before they fall asleep, Scout asks Dill why Boo Radley has never run off. Maybe, Dill answers, because he doesn't have a place he can run to.

Atticus’s sister. She’s married, but Scout insists that her husband isn’t worth mentioning. Aunt Alexandra is a formidable lady and is the only Finch sibling who stayed at Finch’s Landing, the family’s old plantation. Scout dislikes her, as Aunt Alexandra takes great offense to Scout’s tomboyish nature and desperately wants Scout to wear dresses and act more feminine. In the months before Tom Robinson’s trial, Aunt Alexandra inexplicably decides to move in with Atticus in order to give Scout a feminine role model, though Scout suspects that there’s more to it than this. While in Atticus’s home, Aunt Alexandra proves to be somewhat racist and very classist—she detests Calpurnia’s presence and disapproves of Atticus’s choice to defend Robinson. She makes it very clear to Scout that the Finches are a good family and that Scout shouldn’t spend time with her poorer peers. For all these faults, Aunt Alexandra does rally around Atticus and try to comfort him when he loses the trial, and she remains concerned for Scout and Jem’s safety once Mr. Ewell begins harassing Atticus, Helen Robinson, and Judge Taylor.

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