Essay On Jim Crow Laws In To Kill A Mockingbird

In Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Scout, who is the protagonist, is six years old and lives in Maycomb County, Alabama. She has the talent of reading when most people her age still can't and that is thanks to her father, Atticus who is a lawyer and her cook who In addition, the historical novel has a lot of gender inequality, injustice, and racial discrimination. Scout is a young girl, who is not like other girls, for she is like a tomboy who likes to play outside, play with her brother, and get dirty. Furthermore, she knows the laws that only a lawyer would know because of her father Atticus. On the other hand, she lost her mother, and her father is hardly around, so she doesn't have a parental figure around.

Think to yourself have you ever been treated a way purely based only the color of your skin? In the book, To KIll A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there are many scenarios involving racial issues. In the injustice world of Maycomb made up of a majority of white people and some blacks. The book follows the lives of Atticus, Jem and Scout Finch a white not racist family, that goes through some tough times. Lee teaches her reader that racism causes people to make unjust decisions because they see blacks as half a human.

Harper Lee includes many Jim Crow laws in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Jim Crow laws were racial segregation laws that blacks were expected to follow and respect. A few examples of Jim Crow laws blacks and whites were not suppose to eat together, blacks were not allowed to display public affection toward one another. If a black person was riding in a car driven by a white man he would have to sit in the back of the vehicle (Pilgrim). Harper Lee incorporates many Jim crow laws inside of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Synthesis Writing Assessment “All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.” (Aristotle) In mob mentality people follow what is established. Mob mentality occurs when people forget about their own beliefs and follow what everyone else is doing.

Humans live in a world where moral values are very clearly set determining what is good and what is bad. We know what scares us and how racism should be treated. Nevertheless, this was not the case back in Alabama during the 1950s. In the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee narrates the lives of the people of Maycomb, Alabama, focusing on the story of Scout and Jem Finch, and the case of a said to be rape. In this emotion filled narrative, readers learn how life was back then not only in general, but for the separate social statuses that there was.

Both past and present societies are overshadowed by years of injustice and prejudice. People are often judged, criticized, or have their futures affected by the biased social norms that continue to linger in society today. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird displays and brings up a series of arguments that, although the literature was written more than fifty years ago, are still applicable to the present day, with some of those arguments being about the effects of an individual’s socioeconomic status in an arraigning community. Lee’s arguments on socioeconomic class suffice to say that, on most occasions, citizens who grow up and are naturally born with educational advantages are already at the top of the social hierarchy, while others believe that that kind of status becomes irrelevant when one’s morality is taken into account.

Essentially, the root of all problems stems from prejudiced situations, social inequality is created by religious, ethnic and many other forms of discrimination. Social inequality is defined as ‘the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society’. In To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, specifically, it is created by racism, classism and gender. Inequality factors into the course of the story in very evident ways ultimately causing extreme injustice. Harper Lee’s masterful novel exposes the dark underbelly of society, a society overflowing with hate, narrow mindedness and prejudice.

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird has caused a copious amount of controversy over its relevance in today’s society. This marvelous tale is relevant to today’s society. According to the critic Jill May’s article, In defense of To Kill A Mockingbird, it is relevant because Harper Lee herself grew up with the attitudes depicted and the book survived the first period of regional criticism. Quotes from the book’s narrator and lead character, Scout Finch, show us that she, Scout, matures throughout the novel.

American history is a sad and bloody history with many bumps that have created it into the superpower it is today. This hardship from our history played a crucial part in many books and especially To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee created a writing masterpiece by using real life events as well as using real life corrupted laws. Connections like the Jim Crow laws, the mob mentality, and issues of racism that were taking place in that time.

In To Kill a Mockingbird there are lots of racial, gender, and religious, discrimination. Which is shown a multiple amount of times throughout the novel. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel written by Harper Lee which takes place in Maycomb Alabama, where there is a lot of racial discrimination. But there is also some gender, and religious, discrimination.

One of the first historical events in To Kill A Mockingbird relate to Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws were laws used to make Whites feel more superior than Blacks. The Jim Crow Laws were a “series of rigid anti-Black laws” (Pilgram). Throughout the time period of the Jim Crow Laws, Christians thought that Whites were the chosen people (Pilgram). Whites used Jim Crow Laws to team up on Blacks, and used them to affect African-Americans to make Whites feel better about their self.

Racism Come to humans naturally we all judge our surroundings and the people living in it which means our opinions are based our views and values. The values gradually leads us to be biased towards some people. The novel To Kill Mockingbird by Harper Lee and the article “Jim Crow Policing” by Bob Herbert both inform readers about the life of colored folks now and during the great depression. They also both inform the readers how no one cared about the way they treated colored people or if they were hurting their feelings. Racism can either be embedded in a man’s heart or can be enforced by law.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee argues that prejudice can affect people's decisions. She uses people like the Cunninghams, Ewells, Aunt Alexandra and Tom Robinson to develop her argument. One event that shows that prejudice can affect people's decisions, is when Miss Caroline, the school teacher tried to give a quarter to Walter Cunningham because he didn’t have a lunch. “Went to her desk and opened her purse. “Here’s a quarter” she said to Walter.