To Kill A Mockingbird Setting

(This is the photo I used as the setting of Maycomb.)

One of the quickest observations I made was the large sign in the middle of the photo. Religion is a very big part of the lives of the people who live in Maycomb as shown in the quote “In the long hours of church—was it then I learned?” Or “She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible beneath.” Both of the quotes show how much church
and the Bible mean to Maycomb and the sign referring to God is something I believe that Maycomb would have. One of the other biggest observations were the fences. In the book it mentions Maycomb has many farmers and I think that there would be several fences to contain their crops and/or animals. One quote says “As Maycomb was a farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers.” Which means that most of Maycomb is farmers and it wouldn’t be unlikely that they had dances around their property. Another observation that most people wouldn’t think about is the brightness in the photo. Although the photo is black and white, you can tell that the photo is bright. Since Maycomb is “down south” it will always be sunny and warm outside, on Page 5 it states “Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day…” which means it is always hot out, when it’s hot it is bright. The last observation I made had to do with the tree. Multiple times in the book there has been a mention of trees, weather it’s the treehouse in Scout’s backyard or the tree in the front of the Radley house. Although we have no description of the trees I thought that because there was a tree it made the picture seem more like Maycomb.

   When reflecting on my observations I tend to think about the religion aspect of the photo the most. When reading you see how much Maycomb believes in church and how you are looked down upon if you don’t go and/or participate. Considering Maycomb is a very religious place to live it wouldn’t be that surprising that this type of sign relaying that message would be found in the town. The message on the sign almost sound like they could come from Calpurnia herself. I know that the sign mentions it isn’t taught at home and we have no reason to believe it isn’t but we really only know that it is taught at the Finch’s home. We know Calpurnia makes Scout copy from the Bible so she can learn to write but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is taught at others’ home.  I don’t really believe that it isn’t taught in homes and maybe if I had looked a little closer this photo wouldn’t be the one I use to describe the look of Maycomb but I think that even though it might not be correct it still looks like what I imagine Maycomb to be like.

Several questions came to mind when viewing the photo. One of the first to “pop into my head” was “I wonder if the person capturing the sign believed what it said. I know there isn’t any way to find out but it would be interesting to know what the photographer thought of the sign. Did they believe it? Was it their job to take the photo? What did they think? Why or why not did they like it? The list goes on and on. My other question was about weather the sign was still up to this day. There is a great chance that people didn’t like it and took it down. There is a chance that the sign is still there to this day, since it was an old sign it might’ve been seen as something that shouldn’t be touched. Not only did I think of those questions but I also wonder if I was right. I know the chances of that sign being in Maycomb are very, very slim but if I could find out I’d want to know if it was anywhere, remotely close to Maycomb.