To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is an amazing novel ahead of its time many different ideas and themes are in this book driving the plot ahead of the unjust prejudice that happens in the town of Maycomb including Racism, Class Division and Sexism but there is nothing that drives the whole narrative and pushes the main ideas and themes of the book more than the Setting. The Setting has been deliberately used by Harper to help readers to understand what life was like back in the early 1930’s and how racism and prejudice fitted into that setting where real events like the Great Depression and the Jim Crow Laws create a story to its extremes because of the setting Harper Lee has chosen.

Prejudice is heavily shoved into the readers face during the entirety of the novel in three different one of those ways is racism. Racism in To Kill a Mockingbird is a big part of the novel being remembered in the book as one of the most important scenes the Tom Robinson Court Scene the whole scene screams injustice and racism although why is this? As Atticus puts it “The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.” he’s trying to say that a courtroom should be unbiased and whoever is convicted should be guilty and that should be determined based of pure evidence with a disregard to who the person is, if he or she be black white brown etc. Atticus also goes into how African Americans are viewed by White people and how they carry their resentments into the courtroom with them, explaining that what a few black have done they judge the entire population of black people and hold them all responsible, so even if you are innocence you have already been convicted before the trial has begun. This is all due to the setting of the novel the early 1930’s where America was in a Great Depression caused by the stock market break in New York and with the introduction of the Jim Crow Laws where segregation between white and black was at its most extreme the setting influences what the jury will decide upon as they are biased due to the stigma around African Americans because of the 1930’s setting this kind of racist behaviour was completely normal and was to be expected people of not colour helping people who were colour were seen as almost one of them people started seeing you with the same look of a coloured man they would shout out phrases like “Nigger-Lover” which was said multiple times during the film towards Atticus because he was defending an innocent man during the trial. The setting in the book caused people to be racist because back in the 1930’s this kind of behaviour was normal and expected as most families were raised on the idea that black people are terrible, can’t be trusted individuals that live in poor areas in/ out of town.

Class Division is personally for me one of the strongest themes in To Kill a Mockingbird that is strongly relying on the setting of the 1930’s and is divided by occupation and skin colour even in the novel white people are still amongst some of the poorest in Maycomb due to them being farmers and farmers were some of the hardest hit by the Depression. Class division is interesting because without the setting that Harper has chosen is completely crucial to the plot and there would be little to none class division at least to the extremities it is in the book. In the small town of the Maycomb the town is divided up into many different classes it is also shown through physical division of the four different families that Jem mentions “There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes.” even Jem a young teen can realise the division of class because it is so present in this story. It is so present due to the crucial setting where the Great Depression one of the worst ever hits America and the already poor South States of America got even more poor even the Finches are struggling and they are one of the more comfortable people unlike the Ewells, Cunninghams and the coloured people. Scout captures the pace and money in Maycomb beautifully with a quote “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.” Scout in this quotes emphasizes the slow pace of the town and the fact that the old tired town had nothing to buy and no money to buy it anyway this is due to the setting caused by the 1929-1939 Great Depression which through the whole country into poverty especially small towns like Maycomb and because of this farmers,like the Ewells and Cunninghams, African Americans etc where hit the hardest from an event like and so as a result class division is created with people like the Finches live in town in nice big houses, while the Cunninghams live in the forest, Ewells in the dump and the Negros in little settlements on the outskirts of Maycomb. Class division is one part of the prejudice that the book is trying to show and because of this clever way of using the 1930’s setting to get important scenes that deepen the plot of the novel when Scout and Dill go outside the courtroom they run into Dolphus Raymond who defied the norms of a white man. Dolphus a wealthy white man has chosen to no longer live with the rest of the white population and live with his black wife and family in the little settlement and because of this the rest of Maycomb scorn at him but he uses a fake addiction to alcohol to give them a reason as he explains it “It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason …. folks can say Dolphus Raymond’s in the clutches of whiskey- that’s why he won’t change his ways.” to happen in the book many events that take place in the book are because of class division and they all make up To Kill a Mockingbird we know today so setting is so important for class division in the novel, if it was set in the present day there would not nearly be much different in class even if there was a little if would not be as stretched as the class division in Maycomb.

The third final part of the prejudice that is presented through To Kill a Mockingbird is sexism. Harper has portrayed sexism in this book as mostly women being not equal to men which is true as the novel is set in the 1930’s where most women were unemployed and were working at home or the rare few that did have jobs were considered odd, they couldn’t vote etc and they were also expected to be “woman-like” which included wearing dresses and well being a typical 1930’s lady. This type of sexism is the most heavily inflicted in the novel in my opinion, its shown where Scout repeatedly when she doesn’t want to do something that her brother Jem will call her out for it and call her a girl. “I declare to the Lord you’re gettin’ more like a girl every day!” With that, I had no option but to join them.” Jem says this repeatedly throughout the novel because he knows that Scout has always felt a big animosity towards being called a girl so she always ends up joining Jem and Dill in whatever they are up to. Although Jem may not know that the type of comment is sexist and he is portraying a stereotype he in my opinion only thinks of it as a way to coax Scout into helping them. Aunt Alexandra is also a big character on the subject of sexism and stereotypes, and also has a big problem with how Scout acts and dresses “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants.” This is all because of the 1930’s setting deliberately used by Harper Lee as almost if the setting was just another main character the setting completely puts the sexism and sexist stereotypes in To Kill a Mockingbird because of how the balance between men and woman was tipped out of scale unlike present day where that scale is more balanced evenly.

To Kill a Mockingbird for me was an amazing read with each page I turned I started getting deeper and deeper into the intricate message that Harper Lee has woven into her novel with prejudice being so strongly showed but not just because she felt like adding in the three themes of prejudice Racism, Class division and Sexism but using the setting of the South States of America in the 1930’s to put the finale pieces in the puzzle to finish the masterpiece the 30’s setting gives reason to all this fantastic scenes in To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee has truly published a book that will used as a timestamp to never repeat history and especially that of the early 1930’s prejudice.