To Kill a Mockingbird - Racism

            To Kill a Mockingbird - Analytical Essay.
             Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird we are presented with two things, a happy little southern town and the ugly face of racism. We are shown this in many shapes and forms; through characters, setting and events throughout the story. Although the town, Maycomb, portrays both a happy community and a pretty little town on it's surface, underneath it exposes its ugly division formed by the sad, ongoing issue of racism. .
             To Kill a Mockingbird is set in a small, southern town in 1930's America. This is a period after the civil war, during the depression. It was during this time period that the townsfolk were going through a time of unrest and upheaval when it came to racism and this brought on many different views on the issue. Some people had changed their views about the Negroes but others were still caught in the rut of absolute prejudice against them. We see these varying views in Atticus and Dolphus Raymond in contrast with Mr Ewell who represents intense hate for the Black Americans. .
             Maycomb is a very isolated town and there is limited migration. This means that the town has little chance to change it's values due to the limited flow of migrating townsfolk and they therefore stay rigidly within their sometimes confined and old fashioned beliefs.
             The fact that the story is set during the depression emphasizes the poverty and sense of desperation throughout the town; this causes people to be very spiteful and blaming and a need for someone to take it out on. The Negroes are the people who are subject to the blaming as the whites can get away with it, this emphasizes how low down the blacks are seen to be and how little they are cared about. The setting of the novel also emphasizes how split the town is between the whites and the blacks. The Negroes are shunned to the outskirts of the town, deprived of an education and even made to attend a separate church.