Prejudice In How To Kill A Mockingbird Essay

The novel How to Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee contains one overbearing theme: extreme prejudice. Throughout the novel “Scout” and her brother “Jem”; their real names being Jean Louise Finch and Jeremy Atticus Finch respectively, are victims and perpetrators of prejudice. In the novel, the children’s father Atticus Finch is the defense attorney for Mr. Tom Robinson, a black man convicted of raping white women with only circumstantial evidence. This evidence only pointing to Mayella Ewell being assaulted not by him; but by her father, Mr. Bob Ewell. Tom Robinson is only a victim of prejudice, alongside a multitude of people, all because of gender, socioeconomic, and/or racial aspects of their lives.

The gender aspect of this prejudice is clearly defined in the beginning of the book when Jem and Scout are speaking, Jem stating, “I swear Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it’s mortifyin’.” (50). Showing how even from a child’s point of view the concept of being like a girl, is a bad thing, even though no clear definition of what a girl acts like can ever be conceived. This being because some of the strongest people in this world are women. Scout as a girl is the one character that at the end of the story is trusted by Boo Radley; therefore, he

trusts her to walk him home, even though the sheriff and Scout’s dad are present. This prejudice may be prevalent throughout Maycomb, Alabama, but it is not by far the worst type of prejudice prevalent.
The socioeconomic piece of prejudice in the County of Maycomb is present shortly after the Tom Robinson case finishes. Whereas Jem and Scout are speaking again, Jem says, “You know something, Scout? I’ve got it all figured out, now. I’ve thought about it a lot lately and I’ve got it figured out. There’s four types of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbours, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells at the dump, and the Negroes.” (302). This quote shows how Jem, as he grows up and tries to figure himself out, falls into the beliefs of the townspeople while Scout does not with her quite infamous “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” (304) However with even Jem falling into the racism of the town by categorising even the Ewells higher than the African Americans is showing to how racist the people are in Maycomb.
In the town of Maycomb the truest prejudice that everyone is a part of is racism.

Racism is what leads to Tom Robinson’s case even brought up in court. With the most humiliating and disgusting quote being during the case between Tom Robinson and the prosecutor, with Tom Robinson saying “I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to be trying more than the rest of ‘em-” at this moment the prosecutor interrupts to say “You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?” (264). The problem with a black man to feel sorry for white women is just that, for racist members of the community this sounds like the black man is superior to white women, which obviously cannot be accepted in the Deep South in this time

period.
In Maycomb County, Alabama the people have deep seeded prejudices that blind their decisions and interpretations of other people and themselves. This prejudice leads to the death of Tom Robinson, and the killing of Bob Ewell, the man responsible for Bob Ewell’s death was only protecting the children. The two characters of Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are mockingbirds, the victims of prejudice.