The Theme of Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird
‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ teaches us about the deceit and prejudice
amongst the residents of Maycomb County, all of whom have very
contrasting and conflicting views. We are told the story through the
eyes of little girl, Scout, and the day-to-day prejudices she faces
amongst society. Her father, Atticus, is a white man defending a
Negro, even though the town frowns upon such a thing. He is trying to
bring order to the socially segregating views, both within the court
and out.
The most common form of prejudice, which is seen many times throughout
the novel, is racism. The white folk of Maycomb County feel they have
a higher status in society than the black community, and that the
Negroes are there simply to be controlled by the whites. The views of
a Negro do not matter; they are worthless to a white person. They are
seen as dirty and ‘beneath’ a white. This is true even in extreme
cases such as the Ewells being compared to the black community. Even
though the Ewells are seen as low class, shabby and disliked, they are
still given a higher status than any Negro. You find out the position
of the Ewells quite early on in the book, after Scout meets the
youngest child of the family, Burris. Atticus tells Scout “…the Ewells
had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations. None of them
had done an honest day’s work”. This statement from Atticus gives us
another form of prejudice; class. By saying that they are a disgrace
and have never done a days work, degrades them and thus makes them
sound lower class, which essentially they are. This topic is raised a
few times in the book, but fundamentally with the same view. The Ewell
children however are treated...
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...t the verdict will be guilty. Tom Robinson
has been discriminated by a biased community, a community of Negro
haters. Tom is found guilty, even though the evidence given proves him
to be innocent. Tom was never given a fair chance in the trial. The
guilty verdict is the result of a racist community.
As I have said, prejudice is a key factor in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.
It sets storylines, gives people different opinions and makes people
biased towards different issues. It just shows how life was in the
1930’s, and the way that race, sex, class and religious prejudice has
changed over the years. People were scared to voice their opinions,
afraid of what the community might say if they did. If this had been
changed and people weren’t so biased that maybe that innocent man
would have lived, and people would not have been so discriminative to
one another.
In To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee people were judged by unfair standards that resulted in oppression. Scout and Jem are the children of a white lawyer who has to defend a black man accused of raping a white female. In the 1930’s in Maycomb, Alabama equal rights were not factors. Which says that the problems of human inequality and the divisions within society were unfair and unjust, like Boo Radley being treated unequally by others. People were judged regarding their race, economic status, or social standing. The race of Tom Robinson led to think he was guilty of a crime he didn't commit. Racism also led to Aunt Alexandra's harsh beliefs against Calpurnia.
Why are different races and social classes treated so differently? Why was education so horrible at some points in time? Two of the characters in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird are Jem and Scout. When Jem and Scout are growing up, they find out that many things are not as they seem. Certain people are not treated as well as others just because of the color of their skin, how they live, educational status, or even on just urban legend. At courthouses back then, blacks had to sit in a balcony. Many people in this time were so uneducated that they couldn’t read out of hymn books at church, if they had any. Harper Lee wrote a story to express the different kinds of prejudice and educational problems in the 1930’s in Maycomb County, Alabama.
The prejudices present in the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, display the views of the Old South. Defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a prejudice is an adverse opinion formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge. A significant prejudice present is sexism against women. The segregation of social classes is also exhibited in the novel. Most importantly, racism plays a dominant role in To Kill a Mockingbird. Although very common in the South, the prejudices displayed are morally wrong.
Scout's perception of prejudice is evolved through countless experiences in Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird. Written in the nineteen thirties, To Kill a Mockingbird promotes the understanding of self-discovery through Scout, an intelligent and outspoken child living with respectable family in Maycomb County, Alabama. Throughout various encounters in the novel, Harper Lee causes Scout's perspective to change and develop from innocence to awareness and eventually towards understanding.
Three students kicked out of a high school for threatening to bring a gun to school. Why would they? Because people were prejudice against them because other students thought they were “losers”. Moral: You shouldn’t not like a person because they aren’t like you. Prejudice was far much worse in the time period of To Kill A Mockingbird. But, Prejudice is the reason for much social injustice. Three characters named Nathan Radley, Atticus Finch, and Aunt Alexandria show us this in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
First, Racism and prejudice are examples of narrow-mindedness. There are many cases of racism in To Kill a Mockingbird, or as Atticus calls it “Maycomb’s usual disease”. Most of the characters in the book conformed to racism, and like Atticus said, “Only the children weep” when there are racism problems. Aunt Alexandra displays her racial discrimination when she gets upset because Calpurnia let Scout and Jem go to her church. Even their cousin, Francis, calls Atticus a “nigger-lover”. Mrs. Dubose says, “Your father’s [Atticus’s] no better than the niggers and trash he works for!” (135). We’ve made some major steps from racism, such as Obama becoming president, but it still exists. If you are a poor black person being on trial for a crime you can’t afford a good lawyer, so you are even more likely to ...
Growing up in a prejudiced environment can cause individuals to develop biased views in regard to both gender and class. This is true in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, where such prejudices are prevalent in the way of life of 1930s Maycomb, Alabama. The novel is centered around the trial of a black man who is accused of raping a white woman. The narrator, a young girl named Scout, is able to get a close up view of the trial because her father is defending Tom Robinson, the defendant. The aura of the town divided by the trial reveals certain people's’ prejudices to Scout, giving her a better perspective of her world. Throughout the story, Aunt Alexandra’s behaviors indirectly teach Scout that prejudice is a disease with deep and far reaching roots.
Prejudice is a strong word. In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, a black man, Tom Robinson, was accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell, and was brought to trial. There were distinct views concerning Tom Robinson's innocence – views influenced by prejudice. The townspeople of Maycomb believed in Tom's guilt while Atticus and the children believed in Tom's innocence.
Prejudice is arguably the most prominent theme of the novel. It is directed towards groups and individuals in the Maycomb community. Prejudice is linked with ideas of fear superstition and injustice.
Prejudice is a real life problem in the world. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee describes the prejudices found in a small American town in the 1930's. Race, social class, and gender are examples of prejudice.
Why do people these days tend to make fun of other people based on that person’s clothing and their skin color? Why don’t people realize that these assumptions can lead to violence? It could also end up killing innocent citizens who don’t have anything to do with this. In another way you can put it is that, prejudice ruins and sometimes even destroys humans. It also causes people to lose the way they look at their fellow human. . In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows how prejudice causes people to believe in rumors, judge others by their skin color, and the beliefs of others.
Throughout the novel Harper Lee explores the racism, prejudice, and the innocence that occurs throughout the book. She shows these topics through her strong use of symbolism throughout the story.
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, many minor themes are present such as gender and age. However, the largest and therefore major theme of the book is racism. All of the events and themes in the book had only one purpose, to support the theme of racism.
One of the widely recognized controversies in American history is the 1930s, which housed the Great Depression and the post-civil war, the ruling of Plessy versus Ferguson and the Jim Crow Laws, and segregation. While textbooks detail the factual aspect of the time there is only one other literature that can exhibit the emotion experienced in the era. To Kill a Mockingbird is the acclaimed novel that displays the experiences of the South, through inequality and segregation, social class differences and the right to fairness. The novel’s experiences are narrated through a grown Scout, who appears as a little girl in the novel, offering her innocent views on the happenings in Maycomb County. The most observed aspect of the novel is race and racism; with Tom Robinson’s trial being the prime focus of the novel, the issue of race is bound to be discussed throughout the novel is race, racism and segregation; with Tom Robinson’s trial being the focus of the novel, the issue of race is heavily represented throughout the novel. With Mockingbird being a common book among English Language Arts and Literatures classrooms, the topic of race is bound to surface amid a young, twenty-first century group of student of students with the inevitability of this discussion, the question remains on how to approach the conversation as an educator. As an educator, one should seek to establish the context of the times, prepare the students for the conversation and examine the other characters and situations similarly to race. Educators must also be introspective before examining their students’ feelings, so that they are not surprised by their emotions and can also express their feelings to their students. The discussion should target a goal, one of examin...
The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It is set in the 1930s, a time when racism was very prominent. Harper Lee emphasizes the themes of prejudice and tolerance in her novel through the use of her characters and their interactions within the Maycomb community. The narrator of the story, Scout, comes across many people and situations with prejudice and tolerance, as her father defends a black man.