To Kill A Mockingbird Setting

      We started reading the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee last week. IN the book so far, we have been in traduced to many characters in the old Alabama county of Maycomb. The narrator Scout, is six or seven years old when the story begins. She lives with her father, Atticus, her older brother, Jem, and the family's cook, Calpurina. We have also been introduced to other people in Maycomb, such as the Radley family. Boo Radley, is though to be insane. There have been stories and gossip of him stabbing his father with scissors, eating cats and squirrels and creeping in people's windows at night. The children all see, to be scared of the Radleys. All throughout the story, the setting seems to play a role in character development.

      The photo I have chosen to represent Maycomb County, Alabama is a picture taken in Selma, Alabama. It shows a store front. There are dirt roads and farm-like land in the background, and there appears to be a man hiding in the shadows next to the store. In the book, it says, "Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square." (Page 5) Another thing that I think is helpful to know is that may families in Maycomb are poor. I think that this picture represents Maycomb because many aspects of the picture match up to the description of the town in the book. For one thing, the roads. As you can see in the picture, there are dirt roads in front of this store. And, Scout describes to roads turning to slop when it rains, which implies dirt roads.

      Another thing that Scout mentions is that a lot of Maycomb is farm land. As it says on Page 16, "Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature." So, as you can see from the quote, the children were taught to work on farms when they were little, and education was not the main priority. I think that that quality of Maycomb matches up with the picture because, as you can see in the picture, behind the store is what looks to be farm-like land.

Evans, Walker. "Store with False Front. Vicinity of Selma, Alabama" Jan.      1936. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives, Library of Congress, Selma, Alabama.