Maycomb's Reputation In To Kill A Mockingbird

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“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I [Scout Finch] first knew it” (Lee 6). The reason Scout, the main character and narrator, describes Maycomb this way is because of the events that happened there. Maycomb County is the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. These events changed lives and communities and caused the powerful adjective ‘tired’ to be removed from the title. Due to the interesting events, Maycomb has a huge significance in the novel and becomes a character with its own personality. Maycomb shapes people and events while being shaped by people and events. For example, the trial of Tom Robinson altered Maycomb’s reputation quite a bit while Maycomb’s racist reputation shaped Tom Robinson’s trial. Maycomb, besides…show more content…
The people give Maycomb a reputation for what it is. Scout Finch gives Maycomb a brighter perspective and a more unbiased one because it is through the eyes of a child, Boo Radley gives Maycomb an air of mystery. There are several legends circling Maycomb’s “haunted house”. It seems a lot of them are directed at children: “nuts lay untouched by the children, Radley pecans would kill you” (Lee 11). It is actually the kind of thing Arthur “Boo” Radley would want; for ignorant children to stop pestering him. The “sagging” courthouse gives Maycomb credit for being ancient and eroded in its current shape. The courthouse signifies equality in a world where inequality is everywhere thus making it nowhere. Dill points this out rather effectively: “It ain’t right, somehow it ain’t right to do ‘em that way. Hasn’t anybody got any business talkin’ like that—it makes me just sick” (Lee 266). Some citizens of Maycomb are indeed trying to reform the subconscious ideals of racism that exist everywhere. Examples include Miss Maudie, Atticus Finch, and Charles Baker

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