Social Inequalities In To Kill A Mockingbird

Social classes have been prominent in societies since the commencement of civilizations. These classes are shaped by the distribution of unequal opportunities amongst each division. Social classes result from varying factors such as race, gender and wealth. The classes consist of inequalities that are propitious to people only at the top of the social hierarchy. For those at the bottom, these inequalities have the opposite effect since they struggle with everyday aspects while those at the top prosper. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird strongly portrays the social inequalities in a society. The novel is set in Maycomb during the 1930s and highlights the different social classes. Lee utilizes the Finches, Cunninghams, Ewells and Blacks

to exhibit a social hierarchy in Maycomb County. The different social statures demonstrate that social inequality causes resentment, isolation and unfair advantages for the superior.
Social inequalities cause people of different classes to resent each other. This results from a higher class thinking that they are far more superior to the lower classes. Lee portrays the different lives of each class and how they significantly vary from one another. Jem tells Scout that “There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes” (Lee 226). Due to Atticus’s occupation, the Finches are highly respected. Atticus is a lawyer and since Jem and Scout are his children, they are considered upperclassmen. Even though the Finches are at the top of the chain, they treat everyone fairly. However, this is not the case for Aunt Alexandra who falls into the same social stature as Atticus and his children. When Scout asks Aunt Alexandra why she cannot play with Walter Cunningham, Aunt Alexandra says “Because— he—is—trash, that’s why you can’t play with him. I’ll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what. You’re enough of a problem to your father as it is” (Lee 225). The Cunninghams are lower than the Finches in the social class hierarchy. It is evident that Aunt Alexandra does not want Scout associating with Walter Cunningham because of his class. Aunt Alexandra considers the Finches superior to the Cunninghams, therefore she does not want any connections between the two families. Aunt Alexandra perceives the Cunninghams as trash and believes that if Scout were to play with Walter Cunningham, it would have a bad influence on Scout.
Furthermore, social inequality results in a society in which people are isolated. Rather than having a unified society, the people are divided into classes consisting of many distinctions. When Scout tries explaining to her teacher why Walter Cunningham refused to take Miss Caroline’s money, she says “The Cunninghams never took anything they can’t pay back—no church baskets and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have. They don’t have much, but they get along on it” (Lee 20). Scout’s description of the Cunninghams to Miss Caroline illustrates the lives of the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams are very poor and try to not take anything from anyone since they know they will not be able to pay it back. This is why Walter Cunningham does not take the quarter from Miss Caroline. It is clear that the Cunninghams differ from the Finches by financial means. Another distinction among the two classes is how educated they are. Jem explains to Scout “That Walter’s as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin’s wrong with him” (Lee 227). Due to the social class Walter Cunningham belongs to, he lacks the education that Jem and Scout have. The Cunninghams are barely able to read and write unlike the Finches who are quite good at it. Walter Cunningham’s social class does not allow for him to try to learn how to read and write. Depicted here is that the social classes make it very difficult for one to go higher than the class they belong to. Since Walter Cunningham was born into the lower class, he is unable to thrive and push to go further than where he already is.
Aside from causing resentment and isolation, social inequalities allow for a class to have advantages over another as well.

At the bottom of the social hierarchy are the Ewells and Blacks. When describing the Ewells to Scout, Atticus says “…the Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations. None of them had done an honest day’s work in his recollection…They were people, but they lived like animals” (Lee 30). Ewells are the lowest class of the white people in the community. They are perceived as disgusting people with animal-like characteristics. Even though they are these lowlife people, the color of their skin allows them to be in a higher social stature than the Blacks. The disgraceful Ewells are still able to convict Tom Robinson and win the case because Blacks fall into the lowest category. Therefore, the Blacks are the most disadvantaged people in the community. When Scout goes to Church with Calpurnia, Scout says “There was no sign of piano, organ, hymn-books, church programs—the familiar ecclesiastical impedimenta we saw every Sunday” (Lee 120). When Calpurnia takes Scout to the Black Church, it gives Scout an insight to the way the Blacks live. Scout realizes how different the Black Church was from her own. Scout’s observations of the Church illustrate that the Blacks lack many goods that the Whites have. The Blacks are very unlucky compared to the white citizens of Maycomb in what they have merely because of their social class due to the color of their

skin.
Overall, social inequalities have negative impacts on a community by causing resentment, isolation and advantages for the superior. The novel demonstrates the distinctive lives of people belonging to a specific class. Harper Lee uses characters like the Finches, Cunninghams, Ewells and the Blacks to represent the social inequality found within Maycomb. These inequalities are the outcome of many different factors like race, gender, wealth, occupation, etc. When social classes form, there are unequal distributions of opportunities for the people. Therefore, some may become far superior to another due to the class they belong to. The social statures make it difficult for people to try and go further up the social hierarchy. Thus it is unfair since some are just born into a low class and cannot move up from there. Hence social statures are damaging to a society.