Why Is The Great Depression Important In To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee makes a lot of connections to events in America’s history in order to write To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a story that follows the protagonist, Jean Louise Finch, Scout and her family in the southern Alabama town of Maycomb. Scout lives at home with her dad Atticus and her older brother Jem. One real life connection Lee makes in her book is to World War ll. She makes it clear that her book was set in the 1930s, which was when the war began to brew. In addition to that, the Great Depression is also present during the book due to the lack of money and employment that was present in Maycomb. The final connection she makes is to the Scottsboro trial where similarly, the jurors were unfair to the defendant. Studying World War ll, the Great Depression, and the Scottsboro trial can help a read have a greater understanding of the events that

The depression started in 1929 when the stock market crashed, and a lot of shares from people and companies were worthless. This left many people in the United States jobless and without money. The dollar bill would not have the same value until 1944. In the book, Scout sees that Maycomb was a poor town and that nothing bad would really happen that could be worse than the way they were living by saying “There was no worry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with”(Lee 6). For example, Mr. Cunningham, who was a poor neighbor, has to pay Atticus with vegetables because he cannot pay him with real money for his work. In the same way, people were worried about their lives , but Roosevelt said to the people of the United States that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”(History.com Great Depression). So the people of Maycomb had to hold onto hope for a while when doing their jobs. The Great Depression started to end in 1938, rebuilding the economy of the United States and the rest of the