At one point in the novel Calpurnia takes Scout and Jem to the black community’s church. The building it is in is also used as a white person’s casino. The black community is very welcoming to Scout and Jem, but Lula, a black woman, is not welcoming at all, she says they don’t belong there because they are white, this shows racism towards white people for a change. We also realise at the church that black people have hard jobs. Zeebo, cleared the corps of the diseased dog off the road, a job nobody would like to do.
My second point is going to look at how the community of Maycomb treat outsiders. In particular I will be looking at Boo Radley and Atticus when he is defending Tom Robinson. So, to start of I am going to look at Boo Radley. Boo is the Finchs’ next door neighbour, he has quite a history. He used to hang around with the Cunningham gang and he was rebellious. When Boo did something wrong the Maycomb community wanted to lock him in the basement of the courthouse. Boo’s father, who dies during the novel, didn’t like the idea, so everyone agreed that he could take Boo home as long as he didn’t do anything wrong again. Boo is very mysterious, he never comes out and doesn’t get involved with the Maycomb community. Could this be why he is treat like an outsider? Well he certainly is. False accusations have been made against Boo that he goes round at night causing mischief by looking through people’s windows and various other misdemeanours. In fact, Boo himself is a “Mockingbird,” the people of Maycomb blaming him for things he hasn’t done because they don’t know who has actually done it. Boo is certainly treated as an outsider.
Atticus is well liked in the Maycomb community; he is a wealthy lawyer, has a good general knowledge, and is quite wise. In the court case the guilty verdict gives a good idea of how racist South America really was in the 1930’s. No matter how right a Negro is, they will always come second when a white person is involved. From the evidence we got a clear view that Tom Robinson was innocent, but when he is defending himself against white people, even the Ewells, he has no chance. Judge Taylor is quite aware of the situation, therefore he chose who he thought would be the best man for the job, Atticus. This may have angered a few people, as lawyer Max Green should have got the case, he needed the experience. When people heard about this they started to treat Atticus as an outsider. They believed that Atticus shouldn’t be defending Tom against a white family, this angered people. During the lead up to the court case Atticus got quite a lot of abuse. One night when Atticus was sat outside Tom’s cell when a gang came along with high intentions of injuring or even killing Tom. They only left when Scout came along and made them feel really ashamed of themselves. After the court case, people stopped treating Atticus like an outsider when they realised he had done the right thing. He also gained a lot of respect off the black community.
In my third point I will be looking at attitudes towards women in the 1930’s. The attitudes were definitely different from nowadays. First of all there were no women on juries, as seen towards the end of the novel when Jem is talking to Atticus about the death of Tom and the guilty verdict given to him. Jem pointed out that if women like Mrs. Dubose were allowed on the jury the right verdict would have been given. Atticus pointed out that women weren’t allowed on the jury and that it was just a fact of life and it couldn’t be changed. He said he would never see things change and if Jem did he would be a very old man.
Scout has a habit of going round in trousers and overalls. Aunt Alexandra is furious about this as she as the kind of woman that thinks they should always where dresses and anything they need trousers for they shouldn’t be doing in the first place. Atticus likes Scout to be free minded. Aunt Alexandra wants Scout to change her appearance and her tomboyish attitude. Scout doesn’t want too!
Mayella Ewell plays a big part in the novel, as she is the person that makes rape accusations against Tom Robinson. She is the kind of woman that has to stay at home. In some peoples opinions she would be branded white trash, the Ewells are the lowest of the low in white society. She is the total opposite of Scout, who is active. Her father has a reputation of getting drunk and has been known to beat Mayella. People feel sorry for her because of this. She is the kind of person who wouldn’t do something for herself in fact she would get people like Negroes to do it for her. This shows that even though the Ewells are the lowest “ranked” white people in society, they are still higher “ranked” than Negroes.
Mrs. Dubose is respected a lot by everyone She is respected by the whole community of Maycomb. During the novel Mrs. Dubose was dying. This isn’t why a lot of people have respect for her though. A lot of people have respect for her because she has the courage to go, in her dying days, without the aid of morphine. Taking morphine would mean she wouldn’t feel pain but she wouldn’t be mentally aware. She wanted to spend the last days of her life aware of what’s going on showing that some Maycomb women have the courage to do what they want.
In my next point I’m going to look at attitudes to education and children. In particular I am going to be looking at the Ewell’s, Cunningham’s, and Finches’ opinions towards education.
The Finches respect education a lot. The children always attend school and put a lot of effort in. Atticus teaches Scout and Jem to read before they go to school. Their narrow-minded teacher doesn’t like this, she believes she should teach Scout everything and tells her not to listen to her father anymore. This shows that education is considered to be only suitable in school and has no place out of it.
The Cunninghams respect education in the same way as the Finches but they are a poor family so they need a lot of help on the farm. They do attend school whenever they can though. This shows they respect education a lot but the family business comes first.
The Ewells have no respect for education. They usually turn up for the first day and play truant for the rest of the year. Even the Truant Officer gave up on them eventually because they were away so often. This shows that the lowest class of Maycomb society have no room for education.
Here we see three different attitudes towards education. We can also see by this how the parents feel about their children. Atticus wants Jem and Scout to do well in life therefore they need to be educated therefore he respects education. The Cunninghams also want their children to do well in life so they respect education. The farm always comes first though. Bob Ewell doesn’t really care about how his children do in life so he has no need to respect education.
In my final point I am going to be looking at communities. I will be looking at different classes of communities, and how the black and white communities support and treat each other. I will also be looking at how the Ewells fit in.
The white community is not that close; they don’t have that many communal gatherings. The women talk and gossip a lot but there is not much.
The black community is very close. They all know each other well and help each other whenever they can. They don’t have much but they still enjoy life. At the church services they can’t afford hymn books, it wouldn’t matter if they could anyway, only one or two of them can read. They have one person leading and the rest follow his words. The black community support each other a lot.
The Ewells don’t take part in any of the Maycomb community activities. They believe they are better than the Maycomb community even though they’re not.
So, what does “To Kill a Mockingbird” suggest about the culture of Alabama in the 1930’s ?
Well, looking at the points I have made in this essay I have come up with the following conclusion. Racism was a major problem in the 1930’s. Sexism was also a problem; women didn’t have the same rights as men. Stereotyping also existed in Alabama. People shouldn’t be excluded because of how they are. Attitudes towards education were generally good. The only problem was black people didn’t have an education and that goes back to racism, I would expect if racism got sorted out so would education for black people. There is one big positive thing in the 1930’s. That is the black community, they support each other to the full extent and this is a good thing.
