Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee “To better understand a person you have to climb up inside their skin and walk around in it.” The quote previously stated by Atticus in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is an unveiling of the upcoming forms of prejudice. The setting for the novel is a fictitious town called Maycomb. This town is situated in Alabama. The racial prejudice shown in the novel has a lot to do with the town being situated in the southern United States. The backwardness and narrow-mindedness of the community fueled racism in Maycomb. These negative qualities account for the social and religious prejudices in the novel. Maycomb people have very inward looking views and so these views are passed on from generation to generation. Prejudice is the preconceived opinion of a person or thing. There are three main types of prejudice: racial prejudice, social prejudice and religious prejudice. These three are the types of prejudice most dominant in To Kill A Mockingbird. Maycomb is a very religious town with the foot-washing Baptists appearing to have a strong influence on the community. The foot-washers have very strict views and believe that anything which is pleasurable is a sin. They are therefore prejudiced against people who are different from them with different opinions or beliefs. The first example of their prejudice is when Miss Maudie says, “some of ‘em came out of the woods one Saturday and passed by this place and told me and my flowers we were going to hell?” Their belief is so extreme they feel they should threaten those who are different. Scout is shocked by this as she thinks Miss Maudie is the ‘best lady’ she knows. Miss Maudie is a good role model for Scout as she is not prejudice against anyone presented in the novel. Another example of prejudice toward somebody is the isolation of the Radleys. This isolation is due to this family not attending church. They also don’t conform to other codes of behavior. The Radleys suffer religious prejudice because of this and social prejudices because they keep themselves to themselves, apart from everyone else. The society sees church as a pastime and therefore pleasurable; as Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist he would not agree with attending church. The community seeing church as a pastime reflects their inward views and their narrow mindedness. The isolation of... ... middle of paper ... ...ion of characters in the novel such as Boo Radley, Dolphus Raymond and to a lesser extent Miss Maudie. These people are often excluded by the society. This social prejudice leads to the exclusion of families such as the Ewells and the Cunninghams because they don’t conform to Maycomb’s belief of normality. They are treated like outsiders with suspicion and are stereotyped. The religious prejudice in Maycomb leads to the persecution of Miss Maudie Atkinson by the foot washing Baptists. Racial prejudice in Maycomb is constantly displayed by the white community toward the black community. The most glaring example of racism in the novel is when Tom Robinson is convicted of raping Mayella Ewell just because he dared to feel sorry for her. The result of this racial prejudice leads the people of Maycomb to be very hypocritical and have double standards. They say they have sympathy for other races in other countries but then they treat the ethnic minority in their town with great disrespect. The prejudice of the town is produced from fear, historical context and their social conditioning. They are afraid because of ignorance and not being able to understand new and different things.
In the town of Maycomb, a man who stands up against racism forever changes people’s views on racism. Scout, Jem and Atticus Finch all stand together against racism and prejudice in the tiny town of Maycomb. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, in the town of Maycomb, prejudice is a disease, but Jem, Scout, and Dill are immune to this illness because of the people who raise them. For example, when Cecil and Francis told Scout that Atticus is a disgrace to defend Tom Robinson, even though Francis is Scout’s cousin. When Scout and Jem hear the verdict of Tom’s case they both cry and are angry about the sentence while the rest of the town is ecstatic. And finally when Scout doesn’t want Walter Cunningham to come over for dinner because she thinks that he is a disgrace. For all of these reasons, the Finch family must not be racist or prejudiced.
Harper Lee wrote a story to express the different kinds of prejudice in the 1930’s in Maycomb County, Alabama. The thesis has been explained by using actual quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird, and then gave logical explanation on how it was relevant. Prejudices affect the world even today and still they are something that is a horrible thing.
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.
One of the first lessons taught in Mockingbird is the power of understanding other people’s perspectives. Initially, Scout has trouble empathizing with other people, especially her first Grade Teacher, Miss Caroline, whom Scout becomes frustrated at for not understanding Maycomb’s complex social structure. After hearing his daughter complain, Atticus tells Scout that she'll “get along a lot better with all kinds of folks [if she] considers things from [their] point of view” (39). After ‘standing in the shoes of another person’, it is much harder to be prejudiced towards that person. Indeed, this may be because a key tenet of prejudice is disregarding the views of whoever is being judged. Nevertheless, it proves difficult for Scout to grasp this relatively simple concept, who begins to hear rumors of Boo Radley, an enigma who has not been seen outside his home for over 30 years. Thus begins Jem and Scout’s quest to make Boo Radley come outs...
Examples included Mrs. Dubose, Bob Ewell, and Miss Gates, all of whom were vicious, spiteful, venomous, and intolerant. Miss Gates said she hated Hitler, but was then unkind to black people. Bob Ewell spit in Atticus’ face because Atticus destroyed his credibility at the trial. Mrs. Dubose was taking her pain out on Jem and Scout, two young children, by yelling at them and insulting their father. Maycomb was an atrocious person, antagonistic and racist. Today, there are still places and people like Maycomb. Our society must attempt to be more thoughtful and help others. We can all make an effort to be like Atticus, Boo Radley, Miss Maudie, Jem, and Scout- kindhearted characters. This novel shows that there can be moral people in a cruel place, good in evil, but it also proves the opposite. All of humanity has a wicked and villainous side, with no exceptions. Life is full of love and compassion, corruption and hate, and there will always be another side of the spectrum- another version of the
Sum up, the social relationship between these people here, this old town Maycomb is complicated and pretty tense. This novel has taught us so much, thanks to Harper Lee – one of the greatest writers of all time. It has opened our eyes wider about racism at that time and compared it to nowadays it has become so much better. People are equally, no matter what skin color you are, what religion you have, or where you’re from, what you’re appearance looks like, we are all equal, and we are all the same – human. So instead of treating badly to one another we should all united and make the world a better place.
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.
A small city nestled in the state of Alabama, Maycomb has got its faults, just like any other place in the world, but one of its main faults or (pg.88) “Maycomb's usual disease,” as Atticus calls it in the book is prejudice. Jem and Scout learn a lot about prejudice when a black man named Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell and their father, Atticus, is called on to be his lawyer. They realize the hate that people have buried deep within their heart when they see a black man accused of doing something only because of his color. On pg.241, Scout starts understanding this and thinks, “Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” As the case continues, up until the death of Tom Robinson, Jem and Scout learn more and more about prejudice and how the hate that people have towards others causes them to take wrong actions. They also see how unfair it is that a white man can get treated better and think of himself better than a black man only because he was born white. This prejudice and the trial cause Jem and Scout to get in argum...
One form of prejudice is rumors, it can cause harm to that individual who is being targeted and affect their future based on the rumor actually is and whether people would actually believe it or not. Rumors can easily hide the truth about that person’s personality because they are basically lies, opinions, and made up stories about that individual. Some people might start passing around judgments based on that rumor and that can a lot of trouble and conflict between the people. That person might not even be able to show their face to other people because they are so ashamed of themselves. This can also caused them to take a wrong step and end their live there. Rumors have destroyed many homes. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo Radley is an example of whom has been through prejudice for almost his entire life. As young children, Jem and Scout Finch are led to believe that Boo Radley is a horrifying man. People have set his image as a horrifying guy who likes to eat dead animals and is cruel. Unfortunately, their opinion of him has been influenced all the people that live in maycomb to believe he is a cruel man and he is nothing but scary. A examples of these...
"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones"- Charlotte Brontë. Nearly every problem and unfortunate mishap in Harper Lee's, To Kill A Mockingbird, has been somehow revolved around prejudice or discrimination. Many different forms of prejudice are found throughout the novel, with racism, sexism, and classicism the most common. The residents of Maycomb have discrimination running through their veins and were raised to be racist and sexist, without realizing. They see nothing wrong with judging other people and treating people that they find inferior harshly. Prejudice is a destructive force because it separates the people of Maycomb, both physically and mentally.
One of the values of Maycomb is racism. However, there are a few that does not believe in this value, including Mr. Dolphus Raymond. Mr. Dolphus Raymond is a white man married to a black woman and has mixed children. He does not believe in society’s ideology regarding racism and knows that some citizens of Maycomb antagonize him. However, he does not care, as he prefers the colored people over white. He knows how unfair society is, from the way he gets treated. Moreover, Jem realizes the falsities of society, due to the injustice he sensed. After Tom’s verdict, Jem’s first clear sense of injustice provided a new perception on the world. When he was young, he believed that the people of Maycomb are the best folks, but the outcome of the trial changed this thought. Furthermore, Scout’s realization of the falsehood in society is with the hypocrisy of Miss Gates. She was taught by Miss Gates how Americans do not believe in persecution. However, Scout saw Miss Gates talk about the African Americans in an adverse way. Learning about the falsehood in society is part of
Hypocrisy is as much a part of Maycomb’s society as church and community spirit. For example, Mrs. Merriweather talks about saving the poor Mruans from Africa, but she thinks black people in her community are a disgrace (p.234). The hypocrisy of this teaching is shown as soon as she mentions the word ‘persecution’. This is due to the fact that she herself is persecuting the black people of Maycomb by not raising an eyebrow at the killing of innocent black men. Furthermore, it is obvious Bob Ewell is abusive to his daughter, Mayella, and that he is the one who violated her, not Tom Robinson (p.178). Since there is such hypocrisy in Maycomb, there are excuses made for whites. The jury probably thinks that if they pronounce Tom innocent the citizens will mock them as they do to Atticus. Harper Lee uses hypocrisy to show how the people of Maycomb are so engulfed in a variety of elements that they unknowingly complete acts of unjustified discrimination.
The themes of prejudice and tolerance are conveyed strongly through the characters and their dilemmas. Jem and Scout learn of the prejudice of the town Maycomb to Atticus defending a black man, Tom Robinson. However, Miss Maudie, Calpurnia and several others show that not everyone in Maycomb are so judgemental. Jem and Scout also learn how to deal with situations sensibly from their father, they learn how to be tolerant. Thus, the novel?s characters demonstrate both prejudice and tolerance.