Now that you know a little more about the role of setting in stories, let’s take a closer look at the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird. Watch the video Portrait of a Southern Town in the 1930s from the AMERICAN MASTERS documentary Hey, Boo, which shows the effects of The Great Depression on people – both adults and children – in a small southern town that informed the setting of Harper Lee’s novel, and then answer the questions.
| Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause/Play video playback |
| Enter | Pause/Play video playback |
| m | Mute/Unmute video volume |
| Up and Down arrows | Increase and decrease volume by 10% |
| Right and Left arrows | Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds |
| 0-9 | Fast seek to x% of the video. |
| f | Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key. |
| c | Press c to toggle captions on or off |
How does the video establish the time, place, and social conditions in the novel?
Consider how Harper Lee uses language to make the town come alive in the passage read by Wally Lamb and the words of Rev. Thomas Lane Butts when he says that “people took in racism with their mother’s milk.” You may want to re-view the video before responding.