Authors love to use literary elements in their pieces of literature, whether they are writing a poem or an autobiography they always use literary devices to enhance their works. Harper Lee in his historical fiction novel To Kill a Mockingbird uses literary devices a lot to enhance this book, and without most of the literary devices the book would not be the same, for example one of the most important parts of this book was its setting, if the author had chose to write this book about a different location in a different time period this would not have been historically accurate or as interesting. Another important literary device the author uses is Point of view. This book is written in the first person point of view and is told by a little 6 year old girl, the entire book would be much more different and complicated if the author had chosen to right through a different point of view. The use of these elements really helped this book come together to where it is on the all time important books. Harper Lee's use of setting is a crucial one in this book, Alabama in the 1930s was one of the places in The Unites States of America that was still into racism and segregation even though most of the north was already past that the south was still in the past. In the introduction chapter the narrator explains the small town that they resided in. “May comb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting of sweat and sweet talcum(Lee 2)”. This was the six year old Scouts view of the small town they lived in, and she explains how the whole town was really old and how it was small and dirty and times and there was no major thing there anymore. Then she goes on to explain how her grandfather set up Finches Landing and how the town was made. This town was still in the past, just like most of Alabama was, unless it was a major city which still was racist, and since this town was racist so were the people who lives there. When they heard a black man had raped a white women almost everyone in town thought that the black man was immediately guilty instead of giving him a chance. There still some good people like Atticus's Finch, and Judge Taylor who helped him, but even with Atticus's amazing facts and proofs they could not bring the jury to the conclusion that Tom Robinson was a free man. The setting of this trial is the only reason the verdict was guilty, if this was anywhere else outside of the main racist states in the south, the Tom Robinson would have been a free man. The other literary element the author uses is point of view, this is a really major element in writing because it may change the entire view on something because each person has
