Explore the theme of prejudice in Harper lee's novel -To Kill A Mockingbirdbird

This essay will focus on exploring the theme of prejudice in Harper Lee’s novel - ‘To kill a mockingbird’ , published in the four years after the renowned bus boycott of Montgomery, , it resonates with the feelings and attitudes prevalent at the time. A variety of different types of prejudice are exposed to us throughout the progression of the novel, arguably the most significant being racial and class prejudice. I shall focus my essay on exploring how these types of prejudice are explored in the novel.

In the beginning of the novel we are introduced to the ‘tired old town’ of Maycomb through Scout, the narrator. Scout reminisces upon her early childhood memories, set in a time where social and racial prejudices were considered well within the social norm. Harper lee’s use of a lexical field of heat created by words such as ‘wilted’, ’sweltering’ and ‘suffered’ indicate to us the negative effect this class and social prejudice induced oppression is having on the citizens of the town.Additionally scouts description of the ,’courthouse sagged in the square’ is used to convey to the audience that justice; represented by the courthouse, ‘sagged’ under the weight of prejudice within the town.

Haper Lee uses the character of Atticus to represent the conscience of the town and to convey important lessons to the audience through his teachings to scout on the sinful and character destroying nature of prejudice, he subsequently teaches the audience of the irrationality and the consequences of such derogatory attitudes.
For example in Atticus’s explanation to scout of the meaning of ‘nigger lover’ he stated that it was simply a ‘common, ugly term ‘ which merely reflects back on ‘how poor’ the person who labeled you with it is.

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... very arrogant, self important man. Bob Ewell demonstrates his sexism through his jokingly derogatory reply to the judges question on whether or not he was Mayella’s father, ‘Well, if I ain't I can't do nothing about it now, her ma's dead," . This quote depicts to the audience his utter lack of social awareness and human decency as he is disrespecting not just his own daughter but also the memory of his dead wife. His subsequent proclamation to the courthouse that he’d ‘seen that nigger yonder ruttin on my Mayella’ exposes to the audience his racial prejudice against Tom Robinson as the use of the verb ‘ruttin’ suggests that he doesn't perceive him as a man but a mere animal. Also his use of the contempts term ‘nigger’ resonates with Atticus’s earlier teaching to scout and the audience and is consequently used by harper lee to imply that he is a very ‘poor person’.