To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee is filled with universal themes within society. Lee uses various techniques to explore the racial prejudice, human sufferings and the triumph of goodness over evil. .
Lee constructed the novel as a flashback through the narrator, Jean Scout Finch, who as an adult recollects her childhood memories. Scout's dominating nave voice analyzes the situations she was confronted as a child. During her transition of her innocent unbiased perspective to her mature grown-up attitude, the readers explore the racism, human suffering and triumph of goodness over evil through her discoveries. .
Set in the 1930s Great Depression in the "tired Maycomb-, poverty was the subject to many human's sufferings. The Finches however were well-off in comparison to the rest of the society ranking at the top of Maycomb's social hierarchy. Jem divided the town into four different types of folks "the ordinary folks like us, Cunninghams, Ewells and the Negroes."" .
The Cunninghams clearly exemplifies the sufferings of poverty within society. The characterization of Walter Cunningham and his non existence lunch and shoes portrays his low class status. Despite their situation, they were still highly honourable as they "never took anything they can't pay back. They don't have much, but they get along it."" .
Although the Cunninghams and Ewells were both victims of the Depressions, the Ewells were placed lower than the Cunninghams and were considered as the dark side of Maycomb. Mayella Ewell was viewed as the "victim of cruel poverty and ignorance- and the "cootie host- Burris Ewell appearance was to foreshadow the nastiness of Bob Ewell. The family was so poor "they hauled its water in buckets from a spring that ran at one end of the dump- and lived behind the "town's garbage dump- that the Ewells "thoroughly gleaned everyday- forming their home "like the playhouse of an insane child-.