How Does Lee Present Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

In the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there is a major theme. Racism is present everywhere throughout this book, from the beginning to the end. This theme is developed by all the people in the town of Maycomb being racist towards African Americans, and some African Americans are being racist towards white people. Harper Lee has made Maycomb townspeople racist to show that this book was set during the Great Depression. We can tell it’s during this time period because of the way people lived and how the author uses language to create the sense of the book being set in that time. Therefore, the most important theme in the book is racism because of the way everyone in the town acts towards each other and treats each other.

The first key point, is when racism is developed early in the book when Atticus Finch, who is a lawyer and the father of the narrator, decides to defend an African American man named Tom Robinson. The townspeople were against Atticus for defending Tom because he was an African American. Atticus didn’t care what anyone said about him and continued to defend Tom. For example, in the book, Atticus states “The jury couldn’t possibly be

In the beginning and middle of the book you will find racism when Atticus knows the jury for Tom Robinson's trial will decide that Tom is guilty. Later on in the book Mrs. Dubose goes through great lengths letting Scout and Jem know that she is against anything Atticus is doing to help Tom Robinson just because he's African American and Lula from Calpurnia’s church, was being racist towards Scout and Jem just because they are white. Therefore, racism was a very important theme during this entire book and Harper Lee made it this way so we can all get an understanding of how this book was to be set up and to show you how unfair it was back then during the Great