Trial Of To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

3. Analysis Trial of To Kill a Mockingbird
3.1 Social fabric in To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in a fictional town called Maycomb in Alabama and is the county seat of Maycomb County. The main character Scott grows up in a time of “vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.” (Lee 6). The Great Depression hit the American South compared to the North harder, owed to its dependency on the cotton prizes and agriculture. Even before the stock-market crash 1929, the South was the poorest region in the United States. The narrator describes the leisureliness of the town, as “people moved slowly then (.…) There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to

Especially poorer whites feared that, following Claudia Johnson argumentation, the “breakdown of the class and, especially racial boundaries” (“Threatening Boundaries” 4) would deteriorate their standard of living, which is the case in Maycomb’s society as especially the family of the victim is considered “white trash” (Lee 33).
3.1.1 Social Coexistence
Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird is segregated in its diverse class stratification and reflects the social, economic and political atmosphere in the United States at that time. The wealth belongs to a small white upper class, the rest is divided into different classes and increments, but poor whites feel they are in competition with blacks for a decent living and the whites-only advantage was their skin color. Generally, there is the idea that segregation results in discrimination, but Deborah Kenn argues that “indeed, discrimination is one of the most powerful enforces for segregation” (2). This discrimination starts with the low income of blacks, followed by housing prizes and segregated education. In Maycomb there is a small place almost outside the

Atticus, a white attorney, spends his night in front Tom Robinson’s cell, who is really scared. Atticus faces the mob which comes and tries to lynch the accused rapist. They feel the need to defend their white superiority with violence and obtain a judgement even before the legal trial. It was a widespread practice to lynch accused blacks in the South even before a fair trial. The possibility for men becoming a victim of a lynching mob and for women being raped by whites was high. Linked to the decreasing standard of living and the fear of losing their position to blacks the number of men lynched in the 1930s “rose to an average of almost twenty per year.” (Johnson “Without Tradition” 4). Lynching an extrajudicial punishment was seen as a “pinnacle of passion” (Johnson, “Without Tradition” 4) which enforced violence. It constituted an enforcement of the conviction of unwritten laws the white privileged followed because the judicative in the United States did not provide the kind of justice they favored for defendants. The demonstration of Black’s powerlessness to boost their own feeling of superiority was common and practiced. When the mob in To Kill a Mockingbird arrives at Maycomb jail, Atticus sits in front of the door to ensure his defendant’s safety. Scout, Jem and a friend of them arrive at the jail where, the narrator, Scout starts a