This story takes place in a small southern town in Alabama called Maycomb. The county was called Maycomb as well. The specific locations that were used in the book the most were the house of the main characters, Finch's landing, the Maycomb court room, and the Radly house. The time period of this book was around 1935.

The central character, and the narrator of this book is Jean Louise Finch, also known as Scout. Throughout the course of the book, Scout changed from an immature girl in overalls to a mature, young lady.

Many characters affected this change, among those would be her older brother Jeremy Atticus Finch, better known as Jem. Scout looked up to Jem and followed in his footsteps. For example, when Jem and Dill Harris were planning to go to Boo Radly's house to place a note on the window Scout insisted that she tag along. Jem also tried to keep her safe like in the end when he tried to stop Bob Ewell from hurting her, even though it would only redirect the attack to him.

Another person who greatly affected Scout was Atticus Finch, her father, he contributed to her change by looking at her more like an adult than a child. Anytime she had a question that a child would not normally get an answer for asking, Atticus would give her a truthful answer. He also set good morals for Scout and Jem. For example, when she asked her uncle a question and he didn't give her a truthful answer Atticus got very upset about it, and later answered it for her.

The next character who affected Scout would be her Aunt Alexandre, a person that Scout did not favor much throughout the book. Her Aunt desperately attempted to turn Scout into a young lady. Alexandre always contradicted what Atticus said, and never agreed with his ways of raising children. An example would be when Aunt Alexandre had a party for her friends, and Scout tried to impress the women by being extremely polite. Normally, Scout would be wearing overalls and she would speak her mind rather than think of how she'd make other people feel if she was rude. Atticus wouldn't have minded that so much, but it would have drove her Aunt up the walls. Aurther "Boo" Radly is also another character with a great influence on Scout. He taught her to not judge people before you actually know them. Throughout the entire story, Scout and Jem would continuously try to get a glance at Boo. They harassed him on a near daily basis just to try and see him. Through all this, Boo left gifts for them in a hole in an old, dead tree, and in the end he saved there lives from Mr. Ewell. An example of how they harassed him was putting on plays that were supposed to be about him and the Radly family, but an example of his kindness was putting a blanket around Scout one night when she and Jem were watching Mrs. Maudie's house burn down. The final character that had a major influence on the life of Scout was Calpurnia, the Finch's cook. Calpurnia, a black, strong-willed woman taught Scout to not be prejudice by taking two white children (Scout and Jem) to her all black church. While Jem was going through his maturing stage, he often left Scout out because he didn't want her around. Whenever he did this Calpurnia was there for Scout, and open-heartedly invited her to help in the kitchen. This helped to make Scout feel wanted. The most significant symbol in the novel appears in the title - the mockingbird. It is a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is go about their own way singing and not making trouble for anyone. The mockingbird symbolizes how people try to mind their own business, but society won't let them. Dill Harris would be a symbol of the mockingbird, because he is a victim of society. Dill was repeatedly shipped from relative to relative because his mother didn't want him around. He ran away because he finally realized that he was unwanted by his own family.

Boo Radly is also a symbol of the mockingbird because he locked himself up in his house and doesn't bother anyone, but society judges him with no reason. People would blame things on him and Jem and Scout would harass him, and all because he just goes about his own business.

Tom Robbinson, an innocent black man, is also a symbol of the mockingbird because he was judged by society when he was blamed for a crime that everyone knew he didn't commit. He was trying to be nice, and help Mayella Ewell whenever he was asked to, and for this she made him out to be guilty of a great crime, and even when Atticus proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was innocent, he was found guilty.

There are three main archetypal common human experiences that occur in this book. The first is rite of passage, then comes courage, and finally prejudice. The one that our group decided to base our theme on is prejudice.

The major theme of prejudice is that you should put yourself in other people's shoes so that you don't prejudge them. A direct quote to prove this theme is from Atticus Finch, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." That quote came from page ninety. Prejudice plays around the trial of Tom Robinson. In this trial Tom was blamed by Bob Ewell for the rape of his daughter Mayella. Basically, this trial was a trial of black against white. Atticus Finch proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Tom was an innocent man, but the jury didn't see him as innocent, they saw him as black, and thus guilty. This proves Atticus's quote that you should not prejudge a person until you walk around in their shoes.

To conclude our report; this book is not only a good, entertaining book, it teaches you valuable lessons about life, and things like that are very important.