Harper Lee highlights how poverty cements the duplicitous nature of society’s race-based class system. She demonstrates how people who are caught up in the jumble of ignorance and poverty turn to racism to mask their shame and low self-esteem. The characterization and storyline are lightly influenced by the author’s childhood observations and memories of her neighborhood and family in Monroeville, Alabama. She relates the plot to the events that took place in her hometown at the age of 10 in 1936.