Why is maycomb a bad place to live

Atticus and his neighbors, though, are able to make a living and can provide for themselves and their families in contrast to the Ewells or the Cunninghams though they can live off what they produce. Nevertheless, there are differences between the neighbors. The most prominent can be seen between the Radleys and their neighbors. This shows that the Radleys have a different status in Maycomb than the other residents; they simply keep away from the others.

The Radleys, however, are not like this. They withdraw from society and close the doors and windows in order to be left alone. The reason the Radleys keep to themselves is their religion.

They criticize Miss Maudie for gardening instead of being inside her house, reading the Bible cf. The fanatically religious Radleys, thus, deviate from their neighbors because they have their own way of doing things and do not accept the way others live.

After their younger son Arthur caused some trouble in the past, Mr and Mrs Radley chose to lock him up, rather than sending him to an industrial school cf. By doing that, they isolate their son from the outside world and hurt him forever. With regard to the Finch family, there is one member that deviates from the rest: Aunt Alexandra. Tom is an African-American man charged with the rape of a white woman. Alexandra comes to Maycomb to help her brother through this difficult time, though she acts in a reserved way and seems to show little compassion and understanding.

Aunt Alexandra has a different understanding of raising children. Whereas Atticus is a more laid-back, liberal parent and gives his children opportunities to experience themselves, Alexandra is stricter and does not permit Scout to make her own experiences, for example, when she wants to visit their black housekeeper Calpurnia at her home.

Aunt Alexandra is a narrow-minded woman. Scout is confused by this, for she was raised differently. She declares,. I never understood her preoccupation with heredity. Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion [ As the readers understand, Scout learned how to look at other people from her father Atticus, who also sees people as individuals and does not judge them simply by their name or background.

For him, good people are those who do good things. When Scout wants to play with Walter Cunningham jr. To her, all poor people are the same: No matter, if they are industrious and striving to change their situation like the Cunninghams or if they are lazy and accountable for their own poverty like the Ewells.

This is one of the biggest differences between Atticus and his sister: He does make a distinction and his children follow his example. The following sections 3. The second stratum Jem mentions is composed of farmers like the Cunningham family who lives in the country that surrounds Maycomb. Apart from them, the novel does not mention any other members of this group.

Scout introduces the readers to the large Cunningham family early in the novel on her first day at school. The Cunninghams are very poor as the prices for crops and other agricultural products have fallen heavily as a result of the Great Depression. For Jeffrey B. They struggle to survive to such an extent that Walter jr.

As a result, he has got hookworms cf. Although there is no hint in the text, the Cunninghams have probably more than one child and they produce just enough to get by cf. During Walter jr. This shows that he is a good-hearted and upright boy with pride and principles like the rest of his family. Since he was not able to pay his debts in money, he paid his dues in natural goods.

He is an honorable man whom Atticus respects. In that scene, Scout recognizes Mr Cunningham and starts to ask him questions about the entailment and his son. This way, she singles him out from the rest of the mob. He is no longer a part of them but an individual. By reminding Mr Cunningham of the things the Finches have done for his family, Scout moves him and makes him feel ashamed, so that eventually he orders the mob to withdraw. He clings to his motto and tries to put himself into their shoes for a while.

Atticus refrains from judgment and tries to understand everyone. Salinger is the best example—she has been stalked, intruded upon, pestered and sought after. I vowed not to disturb her. Her grandfather had sharecropped on the Faulk family land, and it so happened that Lillie Mae Faulk had married Archulus Julius Persons in and given birth to Truman Streckfus Persons a little over a year later.

Capote had been known in town for his big-city airs. Capote, as a child, lives on as the character Dill in the novel. His portrayal is a sort of homage to his oddness and intelligence, as well as their youthful friendship. He wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, his hair was snow-white and stuck to his head like duck-fluff; he was a year my senior but I towered over him.

Williams sighed when any mention of the book came up. After the book was published and became a best seller, H. He spent years fighting for his reinstatement. His grievance was not a sequence of dramatic events like the novel, it was just the unfairness of the Southern grind.

The pettifogging dragged on for ten years, but H. Yet it was an injustice that no one wanted to hear about, unsensational, unrecorded, not at all cinematic. In its way, H. This was also a local story, but a recent one.

One Saturday morning in , Ronda Morrison, a white year-old clerk at Jackson Cleaners, was found shot to death at the back of the store.

This was in the center of town, near the Old Courthouse made famous 26 years earlier in the novel about racial injustice. The trial, moved to mostly white Baldwin County, lasted a day and a half. McMillian was found guilty and sentenced to death. It emerged that McMillian had been set up; the men who testified against him had been pressured by the police, and later recanted.

Bryan Stevenson—the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, who today is renowned for successfully arguing before the Supreme Court in that lifetime sentences for juveniles convicted of homicide constituted cruel and unusual punishment—had taken an interest in the case. He appealed the conviction, as he relates in his prize-winning account, Just Mercy After McMillian had been on death row for five years, his conviction was overturned; he was released in The wheels of justice grind slowly, with paper shuffling and appeals.

Little drama, much persistence. In the town with a memorial to Atticus Finch, not Bryan Stevenson. Monroeville people I met were proud of having overcome hard times. Men of a certain age recalled World War II: Charles Salter, who was 90, served in the 78th Infantry, fighting in Germany, and just as his division reached the west bank of the Rhine he was hit by shrapnel in the leg and foot.

Seventy years later he still needed regular operations. Williams was drafted to fight in Korea. A Broadway Flip. Or a keen switch, more narrah.

It done me good! Johnson told me about the settlement near the areas known as Franklin and Wainwright, called Scratch Ankle, famous for inbreeding. The poor blacks lived in Clausell and on Marengo Street, the rich whites in Canterbury, and the squatters up at Limestone were to be avoided.

The other ignored aspect of life: the Deep South still goes to church, and dresses up to do so. There are good-sized churches in Monroeville, most of them full on Sundays, and they are sources of inspiration, goodwill, guidance, friendship, comfort, outreach and snacks.

Nannie Ruth and H. Church because the usual pianist had to be elsewhere, and Nannie Ruth would play the piano. The pastor, the Rev. Eddie Marzett, had indicated what hymns to plan for. Marzett taking a back pew in his stylish white suit and tinted glasses.

Monroeville is like many towns of its size in Alabama—indeed the Deep South: a town square of decaying elegance, most of the downtown shops and businesses closed or faltering, the main industries shut down. I was to discover that To Kill A Mockingbird is a minor aspect of Monroeville, a place of hospitable and hard-working people, but a dying town, with a population of 6, and declining , undercut by NAFTA, overlooked by Washington, dumped by manufacturers like Vanity Fair Mills employing at its peak 2, people, many of them women and Georgia Pacific, which shut down its plywood plant when demand for lumber declined.

The usual Deep South challenges in education and housing apply here, and almost a third of Monroe County 29 percent lives in poverty. Talk nice about Monroeville. Willie Hill had worked for Vanity Fair for 34 years and was now unemployed. We need industry, we need real jobs. He was helped by the able librarian, Bunny Hines Nobles, whose family had once owned the land where the hotel stands. Selma is an easy two-hour drive up a country road from Monroeville. I had longed to see it because I wanted to put a face to the name of the town that had become a battle cry.

There are always going to be "others" in every society and community. In Maycomb, "the others" are the Radley's. The Radley's are extremely unusual people. They are also very disliked by lots of people in their community. People are scared of them too. The author says many things about what the Radley's are like for example: "They did not go to church, Maycomb's pricipal recreation, but worshipped at home I never knew how old Mr.

Radley made his livingJem said he 'bought cotton,' a polite term…. It is my favourite place. It is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. A government estimate now puts the population…. Although Maycomb is an entirely fictional town Harper Lee creates a realistic feel to it. She does this through a combination of writing and language techniques and through the many perspectives we are privy to throughout the first four chapters.

The most commonly used are through the eyes of a six-year-old Scout and an older, reflecting Scout who uses a more mature view to comment on the events as seen through the innocent eyes of a young girl.