To Kill A Mockingbird Racism Quotes

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Innocence and Racism

In To Kill a Mockingbird there can be plenty of confusion about the theme or what is going on at times but in the end, it is still a valuable book. There is a bit of problem between the Finches, Ewells, and the lower class African Americans. Also, the meaning of the mockingbird from the title comes out. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the author reveals what the mockingbird represents, as well as the theme of discrimination and racism.

The book To Kill a Mockingbird has many places of racism shown through the small town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. One big area or part of this racism is the repetition of the N word used by everyone. Children as small as Scout, to adults like Atticus, use this …show more content…

He made it sound like you were runnin’ a still.”(Atticus and Scout in Chapter 9 Page 100). This shows that even Scout uses these words from the part of what society says the black community is. During this time was also the Great Depression. Although there was not as much slavery in late 1930, blacks were still used and treated poorly. Everybody did not have much money and having the Finch family as the upper class they were not rich. Moving down the social pyramid at the bottom was the African American society who as we can expect from this time and town did not have much money. As well as not as much attention was paid toward them which did not treat them any better. Also, a major place when there was a big part of racism was during the court trial against Tom Robinson. “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads--they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.”(Atticus to Jem in Chapter 23 Page 295) This shows how the people of Maycomb are racist and believe the white over blacks even in court. In addition, another quote that proves the theme of racism during the 1930’s is, “The one place where a man ought

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    He had announced in the schoolyard the day before the Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers.” This quote shows that Scout was being shunned by her classmates because of what Atticus was doing. Jem was also being shunned like Scout because of this. Also Atticus was sometimes verbally attacked by fellow adults in their community. Since Atticus and his family were being looked down upon for defending a African America this supports the fact of the theme of racism being present in this novel.

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  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - The Many Faces of Evil

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    Dispersed throughout To Kill A Mockingbird are numerous illustrations of racism. Statements such as "Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for" (Lee 108) are common throughout the entire novel. The use of racist statements such as these seemed to bother many people who were then driven to ban Lee's book from their schools. If we look back to the times when the book was written, we can understand the use of the word "nigger." During the early twentieth century, the word "nigger" was used as commonly as many people today use the word "black."  The general public either didn't realize or didn't care about how demeaning the word "nigger" was. Eventually, some African-Americans became so used to hearing it that they no longer paid any attention to it. Atticus Finch, Scout's father, however, had a different way of thinking. Although Atticus was Caucasian, he realized that the word "nigger" was wrong to say. He did not use that word and he instructed his children not to use that word either. This courtesy did not catch on. People continued to refer to African-Americans as "niggers" and called anyone who was kind to "niggers" a "nigger-lover." Scout realized this and, as she matured, she came to understand how wrong the use of the word "nigger" actually was.

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  • Examples Of Diction In To Kill A Mockingbird

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    The obvious diction in the novel that shows racism is the use of various racial slurs. For example, various people in the novel such as Bob Ewell and Cousin Francis call Atticus a "nigger-lover" simply for the fact that he was Tom Robinson’s lawyer. Also, To Kill a Mockingbird refers to many black people being farmers on cotton farms. Nowadays, telling a black individual to pick cotton is an insult because picking cotton in the 1930s was slavery. Lee foreshadowed racism through the novel by making these inferences. To add, the use of the word "yonder" is heavily present in the dialogue amongst the children like Scout, Jem and Dill. Lastly, To Kill a Mockingbird embodies the southern accent. There’s an evident difference between the way white and black people speak like abbreviations. For example, Atticus speaks in a very proper fashion whilst Calpurnia, the Finch’s housekeeper, speaks in a more casual manner like "'Baby,' said Calpurnia, 'I just can't help it if Mister Jem's growin' up. He's gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin' whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the kitchen when you feel lonesome. We'll find lots of things to do in here."(Lee 153-154) There are a lot of abbreviations used in this quote when Calpurnia is talking to Scout about Jem. The diction in in this novel helps embody racial inequality as a

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