Examples Of Majority Rule In To Kill A Mockingbird

Majority rule is easy until you have to look at yourself in a mirror, is one of the many themes in To Kill a Mockingbird. First and foremost, when Atticus says on page 140 “The one thing that doesn’t follow majority rule is one person’s conscience.” it proves how hard majority rule can be. Atticus decides to represent Tom even though there is little chance of winning and he is putting his life and his children’s lives at stake. He says to justify doing this “before I live with other people I have to live with myself. In the same light, Atticus stays at the jail cell all night long and protects an angry mob from attacking Tom. When Atticus was at the jail cell there were many people who disagreed with him about representing Tom. Even so, he

didn’t back down. He saved Tom’s life that night. Most importantly, when Tom Robinson was convicted, it was an example of majority rule starting to be challenged. Although, they did not go as far as forcing a mistrial, the conviction took a long time. This is because at least one person did not agree that he was guilty and fought for Tom. Therefore, all of these examples show how majority rule is easy until you have to look yourself in the mirror.
Another lesson in To Kill a Mockingbird is Assumption is the mother of all chaos. To begin with, in To Kill a Mockingbird many people made assumptions about who Arthur Radley “boo” was and made up many rumors about him. The people of macomb county described him as six and a half feet tall with yellow teeth and bloodstained hands. Furthermore, people made assumptions about Dolphus Raymond because he is married to a black woman and has half-black children, The assumption people made about him forced him to pretend he was a drunk to avoid scrutiny from people. He had to make himself a drunk in the eyes of the public just so people would have a reason that he married a black woman. The assumptions made about him changed his way of life. An even better example of this is, the assumptions made about Tom Robinson that caused him to be convicted of rape just because he was black. The whole basis of why people thought that he was guilty were based on generalizations and assumptions made because he was black.