Maycomb

Maycomb. Seat of Alabama’s fictional Maycomb County, located twenty miles east of Finch’s Landing. Through its citizens from professional, middle, and lower classes, Harper Lee analyzes the values and problems common in small southern towns during the Great Depression. Scout learns from Atticus to reject the racial and social prejudices of the town without hating its inhabitants. By walking in the shoes of others both before and after the Tom Robinson trial, she respects Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, who is determined to cure her morphine addiction before dying, and she appreciates Judge Taylor, Sheriff Tate, and farmer Link Deas, all of whom try to give Tom Robinson as fair a trial as possible in Maycomb.

Radley place

Radley place. Home of Arthur (Boo) Radley and his family; located near Atticus Finch’s home. Community rumors about the seclusion of Boo in his home and about his violent actions provide mystery and excitement for Scout, Jem, and Dill during their summers. Actually seeing Boo or enticing him to leave his dark, isolated home becomes a goal for the children and a lesson in tolerance and acceptance. Through the gifts they find in the hollow tree in the Radley yard, they learn of Boo’s tentative attempts at friendship with them. When Boo saves their lives by killing Bob Ewell in the woods behind the school, they learn to respect his privacy and his desire to remain hidden from the probing eyes of the community.

Schoolhouse

Schoolhouse. School attended by the Finch children. By having children from the town and from the rural community in the same classes, Lee shows the various social classes in the county and how all have learned to live together. Miss Caroline Fisher, Scout’s first-grade teacher, is considered an outsider because she is from Clanton in northern Alabama. She does not understand the social caste system of her students, and her new educational practices appear impractical to her students.

Courthouse

Courthouse. Government building in the town square in which Tom Robinson is tried for murder. The architecture of this building symbolizes the strong ties of the town to the past and its unwillingness to change. After fire destroyed the original classical structure, its massive columns were retained while a Victorian clock tower was added. This symbolizes the town’s acceptance of change only as a result of a conflagration and its attempt to preserve the past as completely as possible.

Having the Black residents sit in the balcony of the courtroom during the Robinson trial stresses the physical and social segregation of the races. In contrast, having Scout, Jem, and Dill accepted by Reverend Sykes in the balcony also symbolizes the hope that the young generation of white southerners will be able to see both Blacks and whites differently as they grow up. On the courthouse grounds during the trial, Scout and Dill learn from Dolphus Raymond that his false drunkenness is only a ruse he assumes in order to provide the community with an excuse for his living with a Black wife and fathering children of mixed blood.

Finch’s Landing

Finch’s Landing. Town in which Atticus Finch grew up. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, it was begun in the early nineteenth century by Atticus’s ancestor, Simon Finch, an immigrant from England, and remained the home of the Finch family until Atticus left to study law in Montgomery, Alabama, and his younger brother, Jack, left to study medicine in Boston. Their sister Alexandra continued to live there with her husband. The small town provides a strong sense of history and family within which Scout and Jem grow up. Although they only visit there, each child understands how their current home is an extension of the values and beliefs in which Atticus, Uncle Jack, and Aunt Alexandra were raised. Neither Atticus nor Jack returns to Finch’s Landing to live because the town is too small to support their professions, and each seems to disregard many of the mores espoused there as shown through the actions of Aunt Alexandra.

Point of View

One of the most remarkable elements of To Kill a Mockingbird is its unique narrative perspective. Scout Finch, who narrates in the first person ("I"), is almost six years old when the novel begins. However, the story is recounted by the adult Scout, enabling her first-person narrative to incorporate mature language and insights while preserving the innocent viewpoint of a child. This adult perspective also introduces a sense of hindsight, allowing for a more nuanced examination of events. The narrative unfolds in a straightforward, linear manner, only shifting in time to provide background for current events. Scout's narration is divided into two parts: the two years leading up to the trial, and the summer of the trial followed by the subsequent autumn. Some critics have suggested that Part II should have been further divided into two sections: the trial and the Halloween pageant. William T. Going argues that this division would prevent the latter section from "seeming altogether an anticlimax to the trial of Tom."

Setting

The setting of To Kill a Mockingbird plays a crucial role in the story, as all the action takes place in the town of Maycomb, Alabama. Maycomb is described in various ways such as "an old town," "an ancient town," and "a tired old town," indicating a conservative community deeply rooted in tradition and convention. Scout's depiction of the local courthouse reinforces this impression. The building features large Greek-style pillars—the only remnants of the original structure that burned down years ago—combined with the early Victorian design of its replacement. This architectural anomaly suggests "a people determined to preserve every physical scrap of the past." The novel's time period is also significant, set between 1933 and 1935 during the Great Depression. This economic downturn impacted the entire town; farmers and laborers barely earned enough to survive and had no extra money to pay professionals like doctors and lawyers. When Atticus provides legal services for Walter Cunningham Sr., a farmer with property rights issues due to an entailment, he is compensated with goods like firewood and nuts instead of money. This history between the two men plays a role in the novel; when a lynch mob shows up at the local jail, Scout recognizes Cunningham as her father's former client. Her conversation with him brings him back to his senses, and he reluctantly leads the mob away.

Symbolism

The mockingbird stands as a crucial symbol throughout the novel, as suggested by its title. When the children receive guns for Christmas, Atticus advises them that while it's permissible to shoot blue jays, "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." Miss Maudie Atkinson elaborates, explaining that it would be senselessly cruel to harm innocent beings that "don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy." The mockingbirds remain silent when Atticus steps into the street to shoot the rabid dog, and Scout notes a similar silence in the courtroom just before the jury declares Tom Robinson guilty. The image of the innocent yet suffering mockingbird resurfaces in B. B. Underwood's editorial on Robinson's death, and again when Scout tells her father that exposing Boo Radley's involvement in Bob Ewell's death would be "like shootin' a mockingbird." Another significant symbol appears in the snowman that Scout and Jem build after a rare snowfall in Maycomb. With limited snow, Jem constructs the base from mud and then covers it with snow, transforming their "morphodite" from black to white. When Miss Maudie's house catches fire that night, the melting snow reveals the black mud underneath. This transformation suggests that skin color is a superficial distinction that does not define a person's true value.

Humor

One aspect of the novel that should not be overlooked is Lee's use of humor. The serious themes are lightened by episodes featuring irony and slapstick humor, among other techniques. For example, just before Bob Ewell's attack on the children, there is a scene where Scout misses her cue during the Halloween pageant and makes her entrance as a ham during Mrs. Merriweather's solemn finale. Scout's straightforward, childish memories also add a touch of humor; she recalls that when Dill ignored her, his "fiancee," in favor of Jem, "I beat him up twice but it did no good." Other characters also display wit, particularly Miss Maudie Atkinson. When annoyed by Stephanie Crawford's stories about Boo Radley peeking in her windows at night, she retorts, "What did you do, Stephanie, move over in the bed and make room for him?" Including such humorous depictions of human foibles enlivens the serious plot, adds depth to the characters, and creates a sense of relatability and universality, all of which have contributed to the novel's enduring success and popularity.

Lee skillfully organizes her novel around parallel plots and themes, dividing the narrative into two balanced parts. With her elegant and subtle style, Lee intertwines a tale of two children growing up in a small southern town with the story of their father, a white lawyer defending a Black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Both storylines revolve around Jem, Scout, and Atticus, and Scout’s first-person perspective, focusing on their development, ties the different narratives together.

The narrator's focus on Jem is particularly crucial to the novel's structure and meaning. While Lee crafts Scout as an immensely likable and humorous character, she gives Jem the depth and complexity befitting a protagonist. Each section of the book begins and concludes with descriptions of Jem's growth and transformation. Scout starts her narrative with: "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." The story unfolds from this simple revelation, and by the final chapters, when the injury occurs, the broken arm gains symbolic importance.

In much of part 1, Jem is a child engaging in make-believe games with Scout and Dill. However, toward the end of this section, he starts to discern the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. Scout’s narration mirrors this development; she begins part 2 by observing: "Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody." This sets the tone for the section focusing on Tom Robinson's trial. Just as Jem enters a challenging phase, grappling with conflicting emotions and beliefs, the people of Maycomb are also experiencing the tension of a trial that will test the foundations of their racially divided town. Near the novel's end, Bob Ewell, embodying the backwardness and evil of prejudice, attempts to kill Jem and Scout in a vengeful act against Atticus. Jem’s arm is broken during the attack, symbolizing the pain and disillusionment he endures while learning about Boo Radley and witnessing the Robinson trial.

Jem survives the attack but is left with a lasting scar, symbolizing the destructive power of hatred and injustice. Scout notes that due to his injury that night, Jem's left arm is "somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh." In this respect, Jem shares a connection with Tom Robinson, whose left arm is also shorter than his right. Robinson is permanently disabled from an accident involving a cotton gin, and as Atticus argues during the trial, this makes him physically incapable of assaulting Mayella Ewell in the way she describes. Nonetheless, Robinson's most significant handicap is his race. Jem's broken arm serves as a poignant reminder of this reality, and Lee suggests that Jem is profoundly affected by Tom Robinson's trial.

However, Lee also implies that Jem's disillusionment will not last forever and that he will grow up to be as just and compassionate as his father. Throughout the novel, Atticus serves as a guardian of justice, and Lee symbolically concludes the story with an image of Atticus watching over his children. In Scout's final passage, she mentions that Atticus "turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the 1930s in Maycomb, Alabama, a small and insular town. According to Scout, her father is "related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town." At the start of her narrative, Scout describes her Southern heritage, revealing that her English ancestor, Simon Finch, a slaveholding, enterprising miser, founded Finch's Landing, a cotton plantation where generations of Finches, including Atticus, grew up. Maycomb, located twenty miles east of Finch's Landing, is home to old Southern families with deep-rooted traditions and prejudices. Each family name holds its own accepted identity in the town: for instance, the Haverfords have "a name synonymous with jackass"; the Cunninghams are seen as poor but proud; and the Ewells are known for being cruel and lazy.

In Scout's memory, the town is slow, hot, and uneventful; the men work from morning until evening, the women stay at home, and the children attend school and then play outside. Scout describes Maycomb as a place where "Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum...There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County."

Racial segregation is an accepted norm in the town. The Black residents of Maycomb live in their own section of town, attend their own churches and schools, and hold low-paying, menial jobs. They are implicitly regarded as inferior by the majority white population. The whites use derogatory terms to refer to Black individuals, and public buildings such as the courthouse have separate areas for whites and "colored."

Most of the story, which spans two years, unfolds at the Finch home, where Scout lives with Atticus, Jem, and their housekeeper, Calpurnia, who helps Atticus raise the children after their mother died of a heart attack when Scout was two. During the summer, Dill stays next door with his Aunt Rachel Haverford. Other significant events occur at the school, the courthouse, and in the Black community.

The Radley Place, a source of fear and intrigue for the children, is situated just down the street from the Finch residence. According to local lore, the Radley Place was once inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. Radley, a reclusive and stern couple, along with their son Arthur. As a teenager, Arthur and his friends pulled a prank by locking a town official in the courthouse outhouse one night. Although the prank was minor, the Radleys punished their son by confining him in their home for fifteen years.

Years later, when Arthur was thirty-three, he allegedly stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors without any apparent reason. Following this incident, Arthur was temporarily kept in the courthouse basement before being returned to his home, where he continues to live in isolation from the community. Despite the death of Arthur's harsh father, his older brother, Nathan Radley, an equally strict man, now resides in the Radley Place.

Arthur, referred to as Boo by the superstitious and fearful neighbors, becomes a mysterious figure of fascination for the children, and the Radley Place is regarded as haunted. As Scout explains: "People said that [Boo] went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people's azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them...A baseball hit into the Radley yard was a lost ball and no questions asked."