The Influence Of Maycomb In To Kill A Mockingbird

Maycomb's Influence How much is a person influenced by the community and the surrounding milieu in which they live? Most people are greatly influenced just by the people they are around every day and the environment in which they live and simply just do not notice how great the influence is. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the town of Maycomb influences two of the main characters, Jeremy and Scout Finch, in ways that they do not even realize. At the beginning of the novel, the focus point is Arthur Boo Radley, and more importantly Jem, Scout, and Dill believing he is a monster. The way that this enters these children's heads is through the influence of Maycomb. An example of the children’s perception of Arthur Boo Radley is when Jem describes him to Charles Baker Harris Dill. “Boo was about six and a half feet tall, judging from this tracks; he dined on squirrels and any cats he could …show more content…
Maycomb was like most places in the south at this time in our history and was still very old school and most people believed that black people were still not equal. Racism is an enormous part of this book and really plays a vital role in the development of both Jem and Scout Finch. Throughout the book, there are many instances in which race comes up, but the biggest moment in the story was the Tom Robinson trial. A perfect instance of the novel of when Maycomb's influence comes out in Scout is when she says “You aren’t really a nigger-lover, then, are you?” Page 107. Scout asked Atticus this after she asked him what a “nigger lover” was, he replied by saying that he most definitely was a nigger lover and that he tried to love everyone no matter their race. This is just another time where Atticus tries to use his influence on Scout to positively influence her to believe in what was right and to understand things in the way they should be