To Kill A Mockingbird Liberty And Justice Analysis

With Liberty and Justice for All…
Prejudice has been present from the early reaches of history till the present day. The prejudice faced in the modern day is similar to how it was portrayed in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In this novel the main character and narrator Jean Louise Finch or Scout recalls a story of one summer she had as a child. During this summer the themes of prejudice and bias are ever-present in Maycomb County affecting the everyday lives of multiple people though in a few cases the prejudice is overcame allowing the people to live better lives.
The greatest case of prejudice in this book is that towards Boo Radley, a resident of Maycomb who is believed to be “…a malevolent phantom.” Boo Radley or as known by the adults of Maycomb Arthur Radley is a young adult who had not been seen outside his house for many years. Boo Radley hadn’t even been seen by young children such as Scout and Jem yet they were terrified of him and thought that he would be a terrifying person. Along with this people created rumors such as “…the nuts lay untouched by the children: Radley pecans would kill you.” These rumors spread far enough that the kids of Maycomb would not come near the Radley house let alone eat pecans that had come from its trees. Though this hadn’t been proved Boo Radley was

discriminated for this and blamed for all the misfortunes that occurred in Maycomb. This phenomenon coupled with the fact that there is a rumor that “Arthur was killing them [his family]…” led to him being outcast. Boo Radley when he finally appears is described as a nice person laying a blanket upon Scout after she has to come outside due to a neighbor’s house fire. Even after showing Boo Radley is the subject of much prejudice and causes a lot of trouble when he is mentioned. Boo Radley is first described as a terrible creature that only did wrong yet as the story went on the prejudice towards him slowly started to fade until Scout overcame the prejudice and spoke to him when he selflessly saved them from Bob Ewell. (Lee, 8, 9, 11)
Prejudice is once again shown in the case of Tom Robinson, an African American male that is a resident of Maycomb. Tom Robinson is accused by Bob Ewell of “…rapin’ his girl…” and by being the subject of injustice all throughout the novel he causes a lot of misfortune for the one defending him, Atticus Finch. Tom Robinson was accused of raping Mayella Ewell and was put on trial with his lawyer being Atticus who strived to protect him fairly when no others would. This showed Atticus overcoming prejudice as even though defending Tom brought a lot of hate towards his family he still did his duty and defended him to the best of his abilities. Tom Robinson also faces injustice during the book in the form of racism by getting in trouble for saying “I felt right sorry for her…” Tom faced injustice at this moment with the crowd hating his answer since he, a black man, felt sorry for Mayella, a white woman. Injustice in this form is not overcome as this hurts Tom’s case since they people of Maycomb felt it was wrong for a black person to feel sorry for a white person. The final case of injustice towards Tom Robinson was when he received the verdict of “Guilty…guilty…guilty…guilty…” even after Atticus had proven there was no evidence against him. This showed the results of the trial in which Atticus proved that Bob Ewell had been the one to actually attack Mayella Ewell instead of Tom Robinson. Injustice was shown here in the fact that even with Atticus defending Tom extremely well he was still unanimously voted guilty because of the fact that it came down to the word of a black man versus the word of two white people. Tom Robinson faced many cases of injustice during this book and was a prime example of how injustice affected his everyday life.(124, 180, 211)
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird many people are affected by injustice changing the way they live and how they are perceived by the world around them.

Harper Lee used this novel to show how injustice occurred at the time of writing her book with racism being a common thing and African American people being treated as worse than white people. This led to the book being banned in public school systems because it portrayed the south in an unfavorable way leading to it being outlawed. This book is an important piece of history as it tells the story of injustice faced by black people in the 1930s and how someone such as Scout or Atticus could try to overcome

it.