Harper Lee’s novel unfolds the personal level story on the background of the social issues. Author's focus drifts between these dimensions to give a fuller picture of a small south town life in the early 1930s. Both personal story and a picture of a social ambiance emphasize each other, what allows bringing the central message of the novel. Moral acts are multisided and cannot be judged without knowing the full range of reasons for them. 'You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them'.
We can trace the effect of both the Great Depression and the Jim Crow Laws on the Maycomb’s social life:
1) The Jim Crow Laws de jure legitimized the segregation on local and state levels. Apart from the juridical restrictions for black people, the laws were a platform for unspoken limitations. Harper Lee problematized the racist blind usage in and out of the Jim Crow Laws context. Not the juridical precedent of Tom Robinson sentence itself, but its preconditions made a case of what Lee called “killing of a mockingbird”. The boy was doomed the very moment of Mayella’s accusations were pronounced. And the reasons of that go far beyond the matter of the prejudices and ignorance.
2) Along with the racism, the other reason for discrimination was the poverty. Maycomb as any other U.S. farm town in the early 30s was drowning in the indigence. The clients of Atticus Finch pay him for his assistance with the foodstuffs (like Mr.Cunningham with nuts or the black community after Tom’s trial), the farmers like the Ewells worked on the edge of the survival. The Great Depression aggravated the people’s feelings and revealed the worst of them.
Poverty and discrimination build a dead-end reality of the town life. However, the novel proves that people still have a space for a moral action, even when the walls of injustice and hatred around them seem insurmountable.
One of the primary themes Harper Lee explores in To Kill a Mockingbird is that of moral complexity when it comes to racism and discrimination. During the period of the novel (the 1930s), few were unaffected by two devastating realities: the Great Depression and the enactment of the Jim Crow Laws. Lee explores these concepts through the eyes of the young protagonist, Scout Finch.Jim Crow LawsThe Jim Crow Laws were a set of local and state legislation that legalized segregation. They were a form of institutional racism that limited the civil liberties of African Americans following the American Civil War. Division based in race is a central theme in To Kill A Mockingbird with the most obvious instance of prejudice occurring when Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman. Tension at that time was thick between white people and black people, and throughout the book, Lee illustrates what it was like to be alive in the Jim Crow South. Like other themes within To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee makes it evident that no human matter is simple, and there are many layers of understanding in almost every situation. Though Tom Robinson is discriminated against on the basis of his skin color, a white woman Mayella Ewell is also discriminated against on the basis of her poverty.The Great DepressionThe impoverishment of the Great Depression permeated everything in the 1930s. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the rural town of Maycomb, Alabama in 1930 (the year after the Stock Market Crash of 1929). The effects of the Great Depression on the South are evident throughout the book, both in Lee's descriptions of the town and of its residents. Lee calls Maycomb "a tired old town." Examples are given throughout the novel of various residents whose lived are changed due to the depression, such as Atticus Finch's legal clients, some of whom pay their fees in hickory nuts due to lack of cash.Lee's perspective on the Great Depression is nuanced. She presents the facts within her fictional world, and leaves the reader to make an educated assessment. The craft of her work leads the reader to discover that there is no simple reason why the Depression happened, and it is too complex to distill into any simple moral judgment. The backdrop of the Great Depression as a setting affords Lee the ability to present the reader with many views of discrimination.These two historical realities connect Lee's social themes to the concept of human moral complexity. There are many facets to each individual: history, upbringing and socio-economic status are only a few of the influences that drive us to choose the actions we choose. We can posit based on Lee's presentation of the Great Depression and the Jim Crow Laws that her personal view was as nuanced as the themes in her book.
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