To Kill a Mockingbird Family Values

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It is 1930’s Alabama, a deep southern state, known for its incredibly strict family morals and ethics. In Maycomb County, Alabama, one always knew their place in the world. Scout and Jem Finch come from a respected, proper founding family, and are expected to act that way. The Ewell family, on the other hand, is the town outsider. No matter how decent one of the Ewells may be, their family is the pariah of Maycomb, never to be treated like the rest of the esteemed town folk. Harper Lee effectively illustrates the complexity of family values in the 1930’s as she develops the theme that family and the life you are born into can be perspective and thus restrictive with a pre-determined role in the community. Lee establishes this concept through the use of a conservative, Southern setting, traditional and contemporary characters, and stereotypical racial standards.
Alabama in the 1930’s is a very conventional Southern state, not open to changing traditional folk values. For an extensive period of time, Alabama had stuck to agriculture, and did not have as many technological advances as in the cities during this time. After Scout’s first day of school, she goes to Jem, complaining about her oppressive teacher, and Jem tells her not to worry because both Scout and her teacher are learning to adjust to the new Dewey Decimal System. Then, Jem tells Scout about how beneficial learning these habits will be in making up Maycomb County in the future, “[…] [Jem] ‘it’s like if you wanta learn about cows, you go milk one…’ ‘[Scout] Yeah Jem, but I don’t wanta study cows, I-’ ‘[Jem] Sure you do. You hafta know about cows, they’re a big part of life in Maycomb County’” (Lee 24). People in Maycomb County originated from farm community, tending for...

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...not about to change their ways.
In 1930’s Alabama, there are certain family values and morals that one has to act upon depending on what family they are born into. Your fate is predetermined, and people will treat you the way they had treated the rest of your family for generations, no matter how refined you are perceived to be. Harper Lee institutes this idea throughout the use of the deep Southern setting of Alabama, where advances are deliberate, and family values hold the state back, reflective characters upon this idea of fixed family values, and racial moral/family values. However, times have sequentially changed, and people have the right to govern themselves, with no subsequent relation to their family, or race. People are free to act the way they desire, and do the things they want because there is no predetermined role one has for their future any longer.

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