Setting in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

I 'd like you to think about what makes To Kill a Mockingbird such a renowned literary work of art. What is it that the book exposes to the reader that makes the book so moving? The answer lies in the fact of early 20th century racism in the South. Every aspect of this book, as you will soon be shown, is based upon the time, place and mood of the book-- it is historical fiction, after all. Therefore, in the case of To kill a mockingbird, the setting & mood is absolutely the most important of all the elements of fiction. At heart, this book is about racism and the nature of society in this time, with all core ideas dependent on the time, place, and social conditions thereof. This book is about a marked moment in history, a retrospective into a not-forgotten way of life, and the nature of peoples in the the South during the 20th century. The theme, as anybody could agree, is racism (and, in a broader sense, how people view other peoples). Therefore, the theme is heavily dependent on the setting. The theme must be grounded to a small, Southern town similar to Maycomb, during this part of the 20th century. This is only a small example of how deeply rooted this book is into the setting. For example, take a very expressive quote from Atticus Finch relating to the theme: "...you gentlemen would go on the assumption- the evil assumption- that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral..." (273). Obviously, the theme is, yet again, racism. More importantly, however, is the fact that this racism is dependent on setting, yet is such a driving factor in the story. This is only one of many examples that all things relating to theme in this book can be traced back to the setting. This puts setting front and center for the next topic.

This storyline is a quite an expectable, unpeculiar, and reasonable one. This is so due to the fact that the plot, and the whole book in general, can only be unique to this era; in the way that everything from the inciting

Cited: Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York, NY: Warner, 1982. Print.