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Aunt Alexandra's Reputation

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The setting of a novel is important to the overall importance of the piece. A character’s surroundings affect their morals traits. The setting in To Kill a Mockingbird influences how the characters see the world. The geographical area of this novel is in a small town in the Southern United States. Everyone knew each other in Maycomb County. It was a traditional Southern county. Aunt Alexandra was just one character who was impacted by the South.

Aunt Alexandra was the “perfect” Southern lady. Her Southern surroundings influenced her morals and how she saw the world. Reputations were important to uphold in the South. Aunt Alexandra openly showed that her own family reputation was important to her. In Maycomb, everyone knew one another. Family names told others in the county what kind of people they were. For example, everyone knew the Cunninghams were lazy and not hardworking. Anyone who were to hang out with the Cunninghams would ruin their own reputation in the process. Scout once brought up to Aunt Alexandra that she wanted to invite Walter Cunningham over for dinner one night. Aunt Alexandra forbade Scout to ever play with Walter. Aunt Alexandra was so caught up in the family reputation; she would not even allow her niece to have dinner with a friend. The Southern surroundings taught Aunt Alexandra that reputations were everything. They were very …show more content…

Segregation, especially in the thirties, was still a large issue. Black people were not even on the same spectrum as the whites. Aunt Alexandra felt the same about blacks. Her good morals were tainted by the South. She was not supportive when Atticus took on Tom Robinson’s case. Ultimately, she was not supportive because she was worried about her family’s reputation. White people were not supposed to defend blacks. Since everyone around Aunt Alexandra was against what her brother was doing, she was also not supportive. The setting of the novel created the overall

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