More handpicked essays just for you.
Racial discrimination in the US justice system
Racial discrimination in the US justice system
Harper Lee and today's society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Racial discrimination in the US justice system
“Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society” (David McCullough). In her novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee enthralls us by demonstrating the racism, violence, and abuse evident in the American South during the era before World War II. She relates this through a semi-autobiographical narrative, recalling her coming of age amid the tension of social inequality. The protagonist, Scout, and her brother, Jem, realize the faults in their society for the first time, contrasting the ills of reality to what they wish to perceive. Through their innocence, they are able to perceive the existence of racism and gender inequality evident in their town, without being directly influenced by them yet. During the Great Depression, blacks (And people of any other color) were discriminated against, as illustrated in the courthouse. Scout notices how “The Colored balcony ran along three walls of the courtroom like a second story veranda” (187), apart from the white folks. As the courthouse provides us with...
Harper Lee is an author that most people know of due to her writing controversial novels and her novels also being classified as classics. It seems like most middle school and high school book lists consist of Lee’s most famous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, which is about a single father with two children, the Finches, who fights for the rights and lives of black Americans. When the novel was published, it was considered very controversial because it dealt with white Americans fighting for black Americans, which was not the norm at the time the book was published in 1960. Her novel To Kill a Mockingbird was not her only controversial novel though; she released a second novel titled Go Set a Watchman in 2015 which is also about the Finches, just when the children are adults, and with a twist that the beloved audience of Lee’s first novel do not approve of ever so slightly. Although the books are very different with the aging of characters and opposing views from the characters in the first novel, there is one theme that is very prominent in both novels. The common theme between the novels is gender equality. Harper Lee uses gender inequality in both novels to show her readers
In to Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses characters to explore the different stereotypes in the Southern United States of the 1930s. Told through the eyes of Scout Finch you learn how these stereotypes are so absurd and fabricated they really were. The novel also portrays numerous examples of racism, sexism, in creative ways. The stereotypes and themes portrayed in this novel are exactly what makes it so relevant to today’s society.
This quote is significant because it shows the gender roles that is used in the Finches home. After Aunt Alexandra came over to visit for a few weeks/months, many gender roles were changed. Aunt Alexandra felt like the head of the house, because she is trying to put the pride of the family back in her brother’s house. She was so consisted of changing the roles in the house. She wanted Scout to become the girl that every female should be, and wanted the family pride to once come alive in Maycomb, after Atticus made the decision of helping a black man. In her time period, female were discriminated and man were superior to women. Women were well educated back during the Great Depression, but wasn’t that superior to the men because they didn’t had their rights back there.
As a person grows to join society, they will inevitably run into the corruption of the world. The beautifully written To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a classic piece of American literature that explains this part of life. Maycomb County, Alabama is the home to southerners who seem friendly but are generally offenders of bigotry. Throughout the story, Lee describes the coexistence between good and evil in these people. People are sometimes considered either good or bad. In an imperfect world, there is some ratio between the two. Through her characters, Lee makes the reader understand the complexity of good and bad of people and society.
According to “Want to See Pay Discrimination Against Women? Look at the Top” by Bryce Covert, “Male-dominated fields pay nearly $150 more each week than female-dominated ones.” Women all over the world are treated differently because of their gender. This is clearly visible in To Kill a Mockingbird through Scout’s childhood. Scout’s aunt Alexandra encourages her to be calmer and more ladylike, but she doesn’t understand the appeal of being perfect. Throughout the book, Scout questions whether to be polite and refined or to run around with the boys. Atticus, her father tries to let Scout make her own decisions, but Alexandra is set on grooming Scout into the perfect little girl. Women in To Kill a Mockingbird are treated as fragile and sensitive
This is about social inequality in the book “To kill a mockingbird”. The book is set in alabama during the 1930. The main character are Scout, Jem, Dill, Atticus, and Calpurnia. The plot was about who was Boo Radley and how to get him out of his house. Later it becomes about a man named Tom Robinson and him being tried for rape. Now let us get into the three main topics in social inequality Race, gender, and financial.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the concept of social injustice is explored extensively throughout the story. Many of the characters and the events which take place relate directly to this theme of injustice; the Finch family was frowned upon for supporting a black man and Tom Robinson faced racism, but despite all this, the potential for positive change was also displayed. To begin with, an example of how social injustice is portrayed in the novel can be seen with how the Finch family was treated. When Atticus was appointed to defend Tom Robinson, he decided to accept the case and planned to do his best. This shocked and disgusted the people of Maycomb solely due to the fact that Tom was black. The quote "One of the idlers says, 'you know the courts
Imagine yourself in the 1950s living through poverty and trying to support a family. How would you get through life or raise your children on a low income? In To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many quotes about sexism and poverty that will help readers understand how people lived through poverty. Poverty means the state of being extremely poor or the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. Sexism means prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. Women have been more likely to be poor than men. While many lived in poverty back in the 1950s, it still consumes our world today. A quote about sexism from To Kill a Mockingbird, “I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it’s mortifyin.”(Lee 38). This explains how men felt/treated women during the 1950s while many women lived in poverty.
Everyone’s gender is socially constructed. From the time we’re born until the time we die, there are influences come from society that assemble our gender. Gender is basically a creation of what is considered to be masculine or feminine. There are different ways we show gender, we determine gender through gender assignment, gender identity, gender expression, gender ranking, and gender acquisition. Gender assignment is given at birth from the physical body type. Gender identity is the gender one feels a part of. Gender expression is how one performs gender according to those around him or her. Gender ranking is valuing on gender over another gender. Gender acquisition is how one learns gender.
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee she illustrates the role and effects of social injustices, which is still applicable in today's society. The novel takes place during the depression era, a time period of inequality and injustice. In To Kill a Mockingbird the story takes place in a racist Southern Town where a man named Atticus defends an innocent black man of rape. The role and effects of social injustice is demonstrated by this case and the effects it has on Scout and Jem. Scout and Jem are innocents in the beginning of the book seeing everyone as equals and the good in all. By the end of the book they gain a complex understanding of the world experiencing discrimination, hatred, and violence. These are the effects of social
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird the theme is that people shouldn’t be sexist. The readers learn that women get set apart because of natural occurrences. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is talking about her day when she says “They put women out in the huts when their time came” (Lee 305). When saying that women had to leave the house when it was their time of the month is disrespectful to women. Men didn’t have to leave the house (Unless they had an outhouse) to take care of their natural occurrences and especially didn’t get sent away for it so, women shouldn’t have been sent away just because they were menstruating. The readers also will learn that the only way for women to get far in life was by being proper. When Miss Maudie is talking
Women have been a big part of history and they have always had a certain standard that they feel like they need to stand by to be looked upon as a woman. Within Harper Lee’s fictional novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the audience is subjected to the harsh impact of women's roles in which the innocent narrator, Scout Finch, struggles to understand the justification for such biased rights. By analyzing major female characters in the novel such as [scout and Calpurnia],one can evaluate the gradual change of female roles and expectations from the 1930s to current day.
Gender discusses the different roles, identities, and expectations that our society associates with males and females, which is an aspect of life that plays a significant role in shaping identity. In in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout Finch struggles with many issues involving gender roles. The aspect of gender has influenced both Scout’s and my identity because it impacted the outcome of our lives. In the novel, Scout displays tomboy characteristics and struggles with the concept of being a stereotypical girl. This can be seen when her aunt Alexandra repeatedly tells Scout that she should be wearing dresses and to start acting more feminine. Scout expresses this saying “I could not possibly be a lady if I wore breeches;
“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations” (Adichie 34). Gender roles were not as flexible in the 1930s compared to the present, but there were many inspiring and appreciated women in the 1930s just like there are currently. Some of these female characters are good strong role models for the main character, Scout, and are very similar to the women role models we have today.
this is quoted to Plutarch and pertains to societies as well. This idea of grouping people based on their wealth plays a key role in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by, Harper Lee. It recounts the story of two preteens, Jem and Scout, growing up in a prejudice old southern town during the great depression. They have become accustomed to the towns habits, like the normally honorable work of the Cunninghams as well as the dreadful deeds of the Ewells. The children have role models in their lives like Aunt Alexandra as well as Calpurnia, a black nanny like figure. Atticus, their father, is presented with the most strenuous and thorny case of his life representing Thom Robinson, a black man, accused of rape by a white woman. All in all the narrative consists of the difficulties of these kids as they struggle through the idea of discrimination, inequality, as well as an array of other issues. Economic class affects the events in the novel by dominating characters judgement, dividing the community, and preserving as well as sustaining blemishes through generations.