Small Town Life

The similarities between Lone Oak and Maycomb County are easy to realize, but not so easy when one does not have a place like Dallas to compare to. Lone Oak and Maycomb are small to the point of not even being on the map. Dallas is a major city, and serves as the honorary capital of northeast Texas. In comparison, Lone Oak is quite insignificant. The people who reside in Lone Oak and Dallas are also significantly different.

I can relate in many ways to Scout and the people in her home town. The people of Maycomb and Lone Oak are similar in the fact that they are close to one another, even without familiar relations. However, I have noticed that many families in Lone Oak are related. Many of them have lived in the area for generations. I have found no specific references to this scenario in the book, but the fact that the Cunninghams have lived in Maycomb for a very long time is a pretty close comparison.

The people of Lone Oak are always informed about the goings-on in society, whether they want to know or not. Gossip gets around the population quickly. For instance, if there is a newcomer in the district, and if any of the original population is even remotely interested, he/she will tell someone else, and the process will continue until the word gets back to the teller, and everyone will know. Maycomb is like this because it seemed that everyone in town knew about Tom Robinson's trial within two days.

Unfortunately, another comparison one could make about Lone Oak and Maycomb is the fact that there are not too many people in the upper class. I know select few who have a significant amount of money, emphasizing select few. These families do not even live in the district, and pay to have their children attend the school. Maycomb has a system of entailment to pay off debts. This resulted partially from the crash of the stock market in the early 1930s, but also partially from the county's original gross economic value.