Harper Lee set her book in the southern states of America during the aftermath of the great depression (1930`s), at a time when inequality was still very apparent. This was the perfect setting for her novel, `To Kill a Mockingbird'. The title has some significance to the events and themes covered in the novel. The title is first explained in Chapter ten, when Atticus gives Scout and Jem their own air rifles for Christmas. Atticus tells the children that it a sin to shoot a mockingbird because "they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out", and it would be wrong to harm them. It is easy to distinguish a correlation between the mockingbird and Tom Robinson. Like the mockingbird, Tom has never done wrong to anyone. Even the jurors who sentence him to life imprisonment have nothing personal against him. They find him guilty because they...