Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, takes place in Maycomb County, Alabama during the 1930s and focuses on the Finch family: widowed attorney, Atticus Finch; the black housekeeper, Calpurnia; the school-age son, Jem; and the precocious six-year-old daughter, Scout. The primary action of the novel revolves around Atticus’s defense of Tom Robinson, a black man who is wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. From the beginning, even the townspeople who know Tom is being falsely charged are resigned to the fact that Atticus’s efforts to defend Tom Robinson are futile. As one town citizen remarks: “in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” Ultimately, that statement would prove to be prophetic. Closed Ranks and “Community” Although racism has long been deemed the dominant theme in To Kill a Mockingbird, a closer examination shows that the sins of pride and complacency play a key role. As Maycomb is a town where church attendance is the “principal recreation,” it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that most of the townspeople primarily self-identify as Christian. But the people of Maycomb hide their own weaknesses by pointing at who they are not and devaluing those Imago Dei and Spiritual Indifference: Maycomb as a Microcosm of Christian Complacency Holly Blakely
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