Setting

Published in 1981, the short story “How Did I Get Away with Killing One of the Biggest Lawyers in the State? It Was Easy” by Alice Walker is set during the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) as indicated by the references to African-American children still going to separate schools (ll. 80-…

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Physical setting

The physical setting is Washington D.C. as indicated by the reference to the Capitol Building (l. 6) and the surrounding area described by the narrator using her childhood perspective:

…I couldn't see the top of the building from the ground, it was so high, and I used to reach down and run my hand over the grass. It was like a rug, that grass was, so springy and silky and deep. They had these big old trees, too. Oaks and magnolias… (ll. 9-12)

This description of the setting symbolizes ideas of freedom and a be…

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Social setting

First of all, the story is set during the Civil Rights Movement in the US, a time when African Americans fought to obtain equal civil rights. At that time, African Americans were still heavily discriminated against, socially and economically.

As the story mentions, African Americans lived in poor neighborhoods, worked low-paying jobs (the narrator’s mother is a maid), and studied at separate schools. The widespread discrimination against African Americans is conveyed in the story through the character of Bubba’s father: 

‘…that man's daddy goes on the t.v. every night and says folks like us ain't even human.’ It was his daddy who had stood in the schoolhouse doo…