How does the setting contribute to the theme of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird"?

Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" takes place in a small southern town of Maycomb, Alabama during the early 1930s, where prejudice was at its peak. The story unfolds through the eyes of a six-year-old girl named Scout Finch. The universal truth applied in this book is the different forms of prejudice existing in a discriminatory society. The setting of the novel enables us to come to a better understanding of why certain events happen …

…enjoy. Harper Lee uses the term, mockingbird, to reveal the "sin" (94) of prejudice and problem of racism in the South. The setting acts as a superb backdrop to the deeply rooted prejudice where the theme is revealed. United States proudly professed democracy but sadly practiced the antithesis of democracy. Under the years of the Great Depression in the South, it is the varying forms of discrimination that results the prejudicial attitude people have towards others.