To be considered as a person’s life purpose to be someone of superiority and overlook what they would consider being trash was the way of life in Maycomb, Alabama. For it to be unspeakable for a person to hope for equality between all people no matter if they were of lower class or a person of colour, the book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ set in Southern America, shows how the climate of the small town is greatly damaged by acts of class prejudice and racism conformed. The climate of a township is very important as it reflects how people behave or how their own prejudiced opinions are inflicted on other people.

“If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?  Many of the resident’s views are set in stone, these views are inconceivable for most of society today but so normal during this point in time. Hate was ingrained into their minds way before they could start forming their own morals and values about the world and how people shared it, so of course, as an adult, they will use what they were taught and inflict these viewpoints on the next generation after them. Only a few people had different ideas about the normality of their hometown, they understood the way hate can damage connections between each other and how that can destroy a town. “There are just some kind of men who-who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” The description of setting establishes the mood, and how we will continue to relate or make judgments to the characters furthermore. In Southern America a life goal was to be above someone in social status as it is important and something to be proud of particularly in a time where people were struggling to survive due to the Great Depression, to conform acts of prejudice to those of minority was possibly a form of security for themselves, as they weren’t at the bottom of social ranking. Status is a common concept we come across in the novel, the social classes are very strict if you are white even in lower class you are still superior in class statue than the black community, being black you were automatically at the bottom of the pecking order. This social separation gives Maycomb this persona of isolation and neglect, the setting of Maycomb is built upon the social environment, factors such as where someone would live may reflect their actions. The isolation and neglection enhance the novel as we know that particularly all of the black community and the white lower class are presented as secluded from the rest of the Maycomb community. Maycomb is built upon this conflict and hatred between people, that is reinforced by the rest of the community of whom had power over the minority. That power came from being born from the ‘right’ kind of people, skin colour and wealth are the deciders to the social success of 1930s southern Americans.

Harper Lee’s intention, was to show the separation of people from each other, what we begun to see as a ‘side effect’ is how the climate of Maycomb changes with the involvement of people pursuing hatred, and the response to that hatred from various members of the community. “They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions… but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” For a white man to fight for the life of a black man in the court of law in the 1930s was like a ‘betrayal’ to the class ranking order. When Atticus Finch choose to defend the life of Tom Robinson in court after being accused for the rape of Mayella Ewell, other characters were angered, little to no people had a connection with the case yet the case became so important to them. For Atticus however he felt he had to abide by his morals, he would rather be despised and judged by people he has little interaction with than to have a guilty conscience. Atticus’s decisions make a remarkably large impact on the profile of Maycomb, he turns heads when he takes assertive actions into breaking apart stereotypes, this causes a lack of harmony between people of power over minorities. The Ewell family is another instance were people in the setting reflect their environment and how it reinforces class prejudice. The Ewells are regarded as trash, they live in a slop and have no education, Bob Ewell the father was known to be an abusive drunk. Harper Lee shows the toxicity of Maycomb and the reader’s response reflects this. Any person with good morals and good intentions would feel the frustration that comes with the response to people pursuing hate for the benefit of themselves and those that look and are like themselves.

The novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird shows how Harper Lee uses setting to reinforce the prejudice of class separation and racism within Maycomb. The novel shows the portrayal of a southern American town affected by the side effects of the Great Depression as well as the pursuit of hatred for one’s benefit in social ranking which takes into consideration the colour of one’s skin or their economic worth. Harper Lee’s intention to use these themes of prejudice showed the separation between people and how the separation of people reflects the separation in Maycomb as a whole. This concludes that the climate of Maycomb mirrors the people so therefore with a change of prejudiced ideologies we would expect to see a different atmosphere.