Novel In Its Setting To Kill A Mockingbird is set against this background of 1930 Southern life. The Finches are a family who once had a large, successful plantation. Their ancestors had been aristocratic ladies and gentlemen of the South. Now they have been reduced to gentile poverty. They are better off by far than the Cunninghams, for example, who have nothing but their land. Atticus Finch has his law career, and Alexandra is still able to make a living at Finch's Landing. Actually, the extremes of poverty are illustrated in the Ewells and the Negroes. The Ewells are poor, but they don't want to do anything about it. The Negroes are poor because nobody will let them do