What is the main setting of the novel? (place, time, economic condition)What are the three ways the setting affects/helps the plot?

This can all be learned in the first
chapter.

The town is the fictional Maycomb, Alabama
(loosely based on Moblie, AL). It was "a tired old town" then, during the Great
Depression. The events of this novel seem to unfold between 1932 and 1935. The town had
just been told that it had "nothing to fear but fear itself." These words of FDR verify
the time period.

The setting of red slop streets and a
sagging courthouse in the middle of the town square help portray the destitution of the
times. The description on page 5 of ladies ambling across
the square, of the sweat and sweet talcum give us a vivid understanding of the hot and
dreary times. This is important because the subject matter of the main part of the novel
is both hot and dreary.

Being set in the
Depression also demonstrates the desperation people may have had. I think
the Ewell family that goes after Tom Robinson does so because the see the opportunity to
take advantage of someone less than them.

The setting
offers opportunity for a racial conflict to brew to complicate
matters being set in the south. Being a bible belt area, this also gave
reason for moral complications to arise which helped the children look at the
perceptions, the example of their father, the question of what is right and wrong.
Rising action is just that, complications.