In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many instances of an extremely ubiquitous problem, even in today’s society, which is discrimination. The book is set in the time of America’s Great Depression, and focuses on three key summers in the lives of Scout and Jem Finch. They are the daughter and son of a lawyer named Atticus Finch, who later in the book takes on the case of Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused of raping a woman named Mayella Ewell. Throughout the novel, the author focuses on the way that the children take in the events and the world around them. Another major character, who is only seen by the children once in the novel, is Arthur “Boo” Radley, who has been turned into the equivalent of a horror story character by rumours spread around the town. Scout, Jem, and their friend Dill have had an obsession with getting him to come …show more content…
The people of Maycomb were very aggressive towards him and on pages 200-207, a lynch mob even came to the jail where he was being kept in an attempt to do something to him. This could be considered racial discrimination because if Tom was not a black man, the mob most likely would not have come to hurt him, but since he was a black man who supposedly hurt a white woman, they wanted revenge. Another prime example would be when Mr. Gilmer, the prosecutor against Tom, gets upset with him for saying that he felt sorry for Miss Mayella. The way he spoke to him was also degrading and did not show that Mr. Gilmer thought of him as an equal. He asked Mr. Robinson if it was true that Ms. Mayella Ewell wanted him to bust up a chiffarobe, to which Robinson replied that it was not. In response, Mr. Gilmer said to him, “Then you say she’s lying, boy?” (Lee 264) This degrading way that Gilmer talked to Tom shows that he thinks of him as not equal to a white man like him, which was a common way of thinking at this time in America’s
Segregation has played a substantial role throughout American history. Many court cases and different trials in different time periods have proven that a person’s skin color can dictate many things, such as where they go to school and where they sit on public transportation. The struggle to achieve equality was made even more difficult by the legislation of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, the main plot, the Tom Robinson case, parallels that of the Boo Radley subplot in many ways. In the Tom Robinson plot, Tom, a black man, gets falsely accused of savagely beating and raping Miss Mayella Ewell, a 19 year old girl who lives in poverty with her father, Bob Ewell, and her many younger siblings. Though the evidence points to Bob Ewell as the abuser, the townsfolk, including the jury, take the Ewell’s word over Tom’s purely because of his skin color. The subplot in this novel is focused on Arthur “Boo” Radley, the mysterious neighbor of the Finch family. They know very little about him, as he hasn’t left his house in many years. In the midst of the Tom Robinson case, the Boo Radley subplot trails off, almost
Sometimes, people discriminate one thing, but strongly oppose the discrimination of another thing. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, this issue is very much expressed throughout the story. This thought-provoking story takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during a time when there’s a rape trial against a falsely accused African American named Tom Robinson. There is also a discrimination, of sorts, towards a man named Boo Radley, by three young children named Jeremy “Jem” Finch, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, and Charles “Dill” Baker Harris. Both Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are similar in their own ways through their inherent goodness.
The story To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee portrays many different scenarios of racial discrimination. Discrimination occurs in the book and many people are affected by the racial slurs and other occurrences. In the story, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson are all people that are discriminated against or are affected by discrimination. Racial discrimination is a major part of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Within today’s world and all the way through history, everyone is either defined as a girl or boy. A simple concept known as a person’s sex or gender. Gender has established roles for each of the different sexes in which people are pushed in a guideline. As society advances there so often comes up with outliers, challengers, or rebels that propose against society’s gender rules. Harper Lee or the author of How to Kill a Mockingbird mentions the topic of gender and how people discriminate on it frequently. Even in times people push their children or even peers to being what they don’t personally feel like they are, as some transgender parents often due. Harper Lee wants to inferences that gender is a defining society rule.
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, many different themes come into view. One major theme that played a big role in the character’s lives is racial prejudice. Racism is an unending problem throughout the book. The song “Message from a Black Man” by The Temptations has many similarities to the theme of racial discrimination. Therefore, both the novel and the song prove that racism was a great obstacle for some people at a point.
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, in chapter 9 Jem breaks down into tears after witnessing Tom Robinson becoming a victim of racial injustice. In this, he realizes Maycomb isn't the town he thought it was. He lost his innocence in that moment because he once believed the town of Maycomb was the safest town. Then after the conviction, he realized the towns predigest, changing his point of view of the people in the community. Reading this reminded me of a memory when I lost my innocence to those around me. When I was around 12 to 13 I thought my neighborhood was the nicest and friendliest neighborhood and I didn’t think anyone around was a bad person. My family and I always hang out with our neighbors, we were outside with each other constantly.
To Kill a Mockingbird The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Horton Foote is a great example of the theme racism. In the book, there is a very important black character named Tom Robinson. Tom is so important because he creates the whole theme of racism in the book as he fights for his innocence in the court of law while he is accused of a heinous crime that he claims he didn’t do. There are multiple examples of racism all the way from Tom Robinson being convicted with little evidence just because of the fact that he is African American, all the way to Atticus Finch the person defending him in court receiving many very racist statements about the person he is defending. One example of racism in How To Kill a Mockingbird is when Tom Robinson
Maycomb clings onto traditions and social norms to justify their racist behaviour. Racism was highly common among the society, the African Americans were suppressed members of society, repeatedly slandered with derogatory terms such as ‘niggers’. Many of them possessed good qualities but these were often overlooked. The first indication of racism we observe is through Scout’s family dynamic. Calpurnia, who is self-educated, can only find employment as a servant for the Finches family who are white. This demonstrates the racial divide that exists within Maycomb. Most individuals address the blacks as ‘niggers’ throughout the novel. The continued use of this derogatory term reflects on Maycomb’s views on black people. They are unable to accept them as human beings and were often treated like trash. The most prominent example of the racial divide in Maycomb is Tom Robinson’s wrongful conviction who was charged for rape due to the false words of a white man. This conviction leads to a pre-ordained. Even though Atticus proved Tom Robinson’s innocence with copious amounts of evidence, Tom Robinson was still announced guilty. Some individuals accepted Tom Robinson’s innocence. However, they lacked the necessary bravery to come forward and accept their mistake. Society forced them to suppress their views. This demonstrates the dysfunctionality of Maycomb. Atticus was looked down upon by Maycomb solely due to his decision to defend an African-American man. Mrs Dubose commented negatively on his decision when she told Scout and Jem that their “father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for!”. Even the act of defending a black man was considered to be going against Maycomb’s values where people thought life was simple as “black and white”. The mentality of the people is extremely narrow, correlating directly
There are three main types of discrimination that take place in To Kill a Mockingbird. They are discrimination of race, class, and gender. Discrimination of race, or racism, is the most obvious and the most common form of discrimination that occurs in the novel. The best example of racism in To Kill a Mockingbird occurs when Tom Robinson is found guilty, simply because he is black. Discrimination of class also occurs in the novel. The best example of this is when Scout goes to school and puts everyone into their own social class. An example of this is on the first day of school when Scout tells Ms. Caroline, “Miss Caroline, he’s a Cunningham”. Miss Caroline doesn’t understand because she isn’t from around there, but it makes sense to Scout
Discrimination- the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or gender. There are many forms of discrimination depicted in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The biggest form of discrimination in the book is prejudice toward black people and people who are different. This type of prejudice creates a bad outlook on some people because they judged before anyone knows them. Several forms of discrimination that I am going to be talking about are direct discrimination and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination is when someone is treated unfairly because of there age, gender, race, or disability. Indirect discrimination is where there is a requirement or rule that
For many years, citizens tried to prevent people having stereotypical judgments. People are being discriminated in our daily lives, and in Maycomb, this is shown in abounding ways. Not all members of the society are treated equally, for example, women are not respected the same as men. Everyone is judged, based on their race and sex on the small things that they do. Discrimination such as sexism and racism in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird negatively impacts the way in which characters act and react to each other.
How would you like it if someone walked up to you and berated you based on the color of your skin? A characteristic like that isn’t even something you can control, so an insult of that nature can leave one furious and oppressed. Discrimination is inevitable in any culture, throughout history, in modern times, and even in ancient times. For example, the oppression and murder of 6 million Jewish people during the Holocaust, the African Slave Trade which occurred for multiple centuries, and more recently, the “ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya people in Myanmar, brought on by the government of the Asian nation, all of which are tragedies doomed to happen when history repeats itself and people do not learn
Racism in To Kill a Mocking Bird " That jury took a few hours. An inevitable verdict, maybe, but usually it takes' em just a few minutes. This time" (Lee 297).Says Atticus, a lawyer in the Maycomb county who is defending a black man. To Kill a Mockingbird was written in 1930s by Harper Lee. During that period, racism was a very common practice for the people due to the Jim Crow Law.
The definition of Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. Harper Lee uses the idea of racism as a huge part of theme in To Kill a Mockingbird. Throughout this book Lee hints and creates symbols for this theme. Jem, Scout and everyone living in the fictional town of Maycomb during this story are affected by racism, which is the most important theme in To Kill a Mockingbird.