TKAM

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird portrayed an era of extreme prejudice and ignorance. Throughout the novel, these specific characteristics were noticed in the behavior of Maycomb’s residents, especially during the trial of Tom Robinson – a highly publicized court case involving a black man convicted of raping a white girl from a despicable family. Although it became obvious throughout the trial that Robinson was innocent, and the girl’s father was the real culprit, Tom Robinson was convicted mainly due to social prejudice toward his race. The unjust result of this trial deeply disturbed the main characters of the novel: Scout and Jem, the children of the defense attorney of the trial, Atticus Finch. Since the story took place in the 1930s, racism was still widely accepted in society, and most of the residents in Maycomb openly professed their derogatory views on people of a different race or social standard. Growing up in a family that believed in egalitarianism, Scout and Jem faced backlash from the community since their father was fighting for a black man in the Tom Robinson trial. Amid these two highly conflicting environments, Scout and Jem had many unanswered questions and no support in the community during these tough times. Additionally, the Maycomb community was plagued with injustice due to discrimination and racism. However, there was one character in the novel who remained open-minded and unprejudiced even in the face of tradition and communal ignorance. A close neighbor of the Finch’s, who shared the same moral views as Atticus, Miss Maudie served as a mother figure to young Scout and Jem, who were going through a tough time in the community. Although Miss Maudie may not have had enough power to change the prejudice...

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...the future generation of the community and serving as an example of what kind of attitude a resident of a more advanced society may possess. Overall, Miss Maudie had a wonderful way of making people feel accepted and cared for. Although the Maycomb community of that time could not appreciate Miss Maudie’s intellectual precociousness from the perspective of that era, we can learn from it today. By using people like Miss Maudie as an example, perhaps someday in the future, all of the people of Maycomb can have the same good qualities of Miss Maudie and all contribute positive assets to our society to improve it for the future generations. By acting as a positive influence on the youth and the reader by radiating receptiveness, Miss Maudie provided the structure needed to prevent less conflict in the future, and thus created more harmony between Maycomb’s members.