A Study of Cultures in 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

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A Study of Cultures Mockingbird

‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ is a brilliantly written novel by Harper Lee. The novel is set in Alabama, USA, in the 1930’s and tells the story of a lawyer who defends a wrongly accused black man while trying to raise his two children, Scout and Jem, as they go through childhood and adolescence, life’s most active learning stages. The book is written through the eyes of Atticus’ naïve young daughter, Scout, and southern ways enhance the plot of the story to give it a realistic and historical perspective. The portrayal of southern culture is shown in an array of subjects. Family, racism, hypocrisy, poverty and hatred are just some of many.

The novel is set in the sleepy town of Maycomb, which, although a fictional town, is based on Monroeville, Alabama and is a perfect microcosm of the ways and culture of people during the 1930’s Depression. Maycomb was not on any major routes. It was “an island in a patchwork sea of cotton fields and timberland” Harper Lee describes Maycomb as a “Tired old town”. The often-humid climate made summers almost unbearable, and the seasons couldn’t clearly be distinguished. It didn’t rain or snow often, (it hadn’t snowed since 1885). When it rained the streets turned to red slop. The town basically consisted of an oak tree-lined square with one main street. There was a courthouse, which sagged in the square and a jail “a miniature gothic joke one cell wide and two cells high”. There was also a newspaper office, a few general stores and a school, which was mainly populated by children from outlying farms. The coloured neighbourhood was behind the town dump, completely separated from the white community.

People rarely came and left Maycomb, because it was not on any major routes. It was the administrative centre of Maycomb County, but too far from the river to grow from commercial wealth.

The town grew “inward” according to Harper Lee, which, by 1933, led to a caste system in which people had become “utterly predictable” to each other. Atticus doesn’t believe one should judge people on what their backgrounds are like, and tries to teach Jem and Scout this. But when Aunt Alexandra arrived she “fitted into the world of Maycomb like a hand into a glove.”

Some families in town were respectable, and others weren’t. For example, no matter how poor the Cunninghams were, they still had standards. If they borrowed some money, or someone did a job for them, they would always pay them back. If they could not afford to pay them in money, they would pay them in kind. For example, when Atticus advised Mr Cunningham on his entailment, he paid Atticus with Hickory Nuts and stove wood. When Walter Cunningham doesn’t have any lunch, he refuses to borrow a quarter off Miss Caroline because he knows he can’t pay her back.

The Negro community made payments in kind after Atticus defended Tom Robinson. They too couldn’t afford to pay him in real money, so chose to use a different kind of payment.

On the other hand were the Ewells, who were categorised as “white trash”. This meant that they were so poor that they were despised almost as much as the Negroes. Their only advantage in life was their white skin. They hated the blacks because they loathed being likened to them. The Ewells didn’t really make an effort to be clean and respectable, and were considered to be little better than Negroes. The one exception in the family was Mayella Ewell, who attempted to break the stereotype by keeping clean and growing geraniums in the garden.

All over the town people are suffering from the Great Depression, as it is causing unemployment and hardship. Children brought their lunches to school in Molasses buckets, and some children didn’t have shoes, which caused them to contract hookworm. The Finches, although poor, were one of the richest families in town. The Farmers, such as the Cunninghams, had been hit hardest by the depression.

Religion was an important factor in the life of the town, with “foot washers”, on the way to buy supplies, going through the streets imposing their ideas and ideals on people. The beliefs about how one should live ones life leads to narrow minded bigotry. Nothing was kept private in Maycomb, as there was rumour and gossip being spread continually. Stephanie Crawford was the main gossip of the town. It was she who spread rumours about Boo Radley, and made him out to be some kind of monster, who ate cats and squirrels, when, in reality, he was just a man who was ashamed of his past actions and preferred to stay indoors.

The town’s coloured neighbourhood lay behind the dump, where the Negroes lived separately from the whites. They had built a separate church (‘First Purchase’), which the Negroes attended every Sunday. The only time the whites and the Negroes mixed was through employment. Link Deas, a local plantation owner, employed coloured workers as pickers, and most professional families in Maycomb had black cooks, maids or gardeners.

They could not rise in status, as they could not be educated, so they were only good for manual work. They were paid badly.

Maycomb’s Negroes were generally depicted as decent people, undeserving of their low regard and status. Calpurnia was employed by the Finches, and had been employed by the Finches ever since she could remember. Atticus was very respectful towards her, and throughout the book he made clear that she was very important to the Finch family. For example Atticus said, “She’s a faithful member of this family”. Calpurnia could also read. Zeebo, Calpurnia’s son, was the town garbage collector. He could also read, and was a respectable member of the Negro community. Reverend Sykes was the preacher at First Purchase. Tom and Helen Robinson were shown in a positive light, as Tom helped Mayella, and did all he could to help anyone. Helen worked for Link Deas, and was respectable and hardworking. The only Negro who showed resentment towards white people was Lula, and this was probably because of the way white people treated Negroes. ‘First purchase’ church was described as ‘An ancient paint-peeled frame building, the only church in Maycomb with a steeple and bell, called First Purchase because it was paid for from the first earnings of freed slaves’ ‘First purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls unlighted kerosene lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner proclaimed ‘God is love’, the churches only decoration except a rotogravure print of Hunt’s The Light of the World. There was no sign of piano, organ, hymn-books, church programmes-the familiar ecclesiastical impedimenta we saw every Sunday.’ They were obviously poor, but had made the most of what they had. Much like Mayella Ewell, they couldn’t help what they were, but they tried to change how they lived, and what kind of people they were. They weren’t treated with any respect, but still did their utmost to make something of themselves, despite other people’s opinions of them. The Negroes, much like the Ewells, lived in small houses, which were scantly furnished, but the Negroes were much cleaner. Whilst the Ewells were described as very dirty, and that they lived like animals, the Negroes obviously kept clean, as shown when Calpurnia took Jem and Scout to church. Scout described the smell of the clean Negroes. “Hearts of love hairdressing mingled with asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt’s Cologne, Brown’s Mule, peppermint and lilac talcum.” The Ewells, in reality were much worse people, and had a lower quality of life than the Negroes, but were placed slightly above them in the social hierarchy because of the colour of their skin. The Negroes were comparable to Mayella Ewell.

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Black people at the time were treated as third-rate citizens, especially in the southern States, below the Dixie line. This is because they were brought over from Africa around 1850, to work as slaves. In 1850, 3,442,264 slaves lived in the slave states. 3,204,077 of them were slaves who had been brought and sold by white men. The fact that they had been brought to America to be slaves gave the white men reason to treat them as inferiors.

Negroes at the time were very superstitious. For example, it says “a Negro wouldn’t pass the Radley house at night” Their ...

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