Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem illustrates prejudice by being biased towards Boo because of her fear of him. In her description of Boo, she describes him as a "6-and-a-half-foot tall man who eats raw squirrels and cats. His hands are blood stained because he eats raw animals. There is a long-jagged scar that runs across his face; his teeth are yellow and rotten; his eyes pop, and he drools most of the time" (Lee.14). By portraying Boo in an animalistic manner, Jem demonstrates his fear of and unfamiliarity with Boo.
In To Kill a Mockingbird and today's society, prejudice is an unjustified, negative, and inaccurate belief or thought formed without adequate information and fear. Just Like how Boo was judged based on rumors and
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the themes is that people should not be quick to judge others based on the labels given by society. During the story, the children judge Boo Radley based on what other people have gossiped about him and what comes from their imagination. “Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained-if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped and he drooled most of the time.”
Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. The world uses it as a blanket to cover up the fact that some people are afraid of other people or organizations that don’t look, act, talk, or pray like they do. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird displays prejudice towards innocent people through hateful words and actions. Prejudice is underestimating the innocence or strength in people such as Scout’s abilities as a young female, Tom Robinson’s rape accusation, and Nathan Radley’s mysterious brother, Arthur.
Various incidents evidently show how it is part of human nature to create misconceptions and categorize people based on their appearance, beliefs, others’ opinions, and other attributes. In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the protagonist, Jean Louise Finch, also known as Scout, grows up in a society in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. Since the town is full of gossip and rumors are frequently generated, Scout starts believing in a legend regarding a monstrous creature named Arthur “Boo” Radley. When she starts gaining negative knowledge about him, there are some actions that foreshadow the ultimate character of “Boo” Radley, especially when saving their lives. These actions reveal that Boo is just another person who is warm-hearted and
Jem and Scout realizes that the obstruction of the mindset leads to blindness, which is called prejudice, when they finally encounter Boo Radley. This situation has affected them negatively before when they based their thoughts on beliefs and not facts, which absolutely demonstrate that people should not judge others without truly knowing them.
One example of prejudice in the book is racism, prejudice against a race. One day, Jem, Dill, and Scout were going out to watch the Tom Robinson trial in the Maycomb County courthouse. They then see Mr. Dolphus Raymond sitting with the Black folks. He was drinking Cola from out of a
In To Kill a Mockingbird, characters who are misunderstood by others are met with violence, fear, and stereotyping. One of the most prominent examples is Boo Radley. An outcast in the town, Boo
To Kill A Mockingbird portrays many types of prejudice such as sexism, lifestyle and racism. Sexism is represented through respect and roles of genders. Women were considered weak, they were expected to be elegant and ladylike. It was expected that women stay home and care for the house and children. Jem would often tease Scout for being a girl.
While using stereotypes in a literary piece of work can be monotonous, it can be very effectual when getting a point across. Harper Lee accomplishes to get her moral condemnation of prejudice in a precise way by using stereotypes within the story. Lee creates the characters to be judged upon without any knowledge of what is really the truth. Arthur “Boo” Radley is a victim of the stereotype in the story. He is believed to be a crazy monster who should be feared yet his only sins are his lack of communication skills and shyness.
An Enotes certified educator says it best when she states, "…Boo Radley is discriminated against due to beliefs formed about him based on rumors." (K.H. Tamara 1). For these reasons, it is clear that Lee is commentating on the intolerance of people who did not fit in with everyone else, and how it is essentially unacceptable to be different. Secondly, Racial discrimination is prevalent throughout the novel.
Racism and Prejudice in "To Kill a Mockingbird" Harper Lee's timeless novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" delves into the dark realities of racism and prejudice in the American South during the 1930s. As witnessed through the innocent eyes of Scout Finch, the young protagonist, Lee presents a poignant portrayal of the deep-seated injustices and discrimination faced by African Americans in a small Southern town. The novel serves as a stark indictment of the pervasive systemic racism that prevailed during that era and continues to resonate in contemporary society. One of the most glaring examples of racism in "To Kill a Mockingbird" is the harrowing injustice suffered by Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman.
In today’s world, Prejudice is still at large and people don’t even notice it. Prejudice falls under many categories of racism, sexism, and ageism. Harper Lee uses the idea of prejudice when writing To kill a Mockingbird to bring awareness to it. In To kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee presents the idea that Prejudice and how judging and treating people unfairly because of their skin color or social status can hurt them and cause problems in society. For example, the townspeople in Maycomb unjustly accused Tom Robinson of a crime simply because he was black, despite evidence to the contrary, which ultimately led to his tragic fate, demonstrating the harmful consequences of prejudice.
Throughout the book, Jem learns about prejudice and not to judge because no one is just like him and people are different. He learns most about this from Atticus. For example, when Scout comes home from school and gets angry because her teacher, Miss Caroline, doesn’t want her to read at home. Atticus responds by telling her that she shouldn’t say anything about Miss Caroline because Scout doesn’t
There are many characters in To Kill A Mockingbird that are seen differently from whom they truly are in reality, this is because in this era people look at black people differently and don’t treat them as equally than they would look at white man or woman during this time. Jem states "Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained If you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten his eyes popped out, and he drooled most of the time." ( 13) . Here Jem is explaining what he thinks boo radley looks like.
In the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee shows that we shouldn’t be too quick to judge another person’s character based on outward appearance and the stories and rumors we have heard. The character Boo Radley is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t be hasty to judge. On the outside, Boo looks like a scary neighbor that lives just a few houses away. “.....he had sickly white hands that had never seen the sun. His face was as white as his hands…..”
Boo Radley had been kept in isolation for so long, he didn’t know how to communicate or socialise properly. He has been misunderstood as a malevolent person, when he actually is a benevolent person. He displays this when he put a blanket around Scout, whilst she and Jem watched the fire. As readers, we are shown social prejudice by the assumptions made about the Radley’s. Another example of social prejudice is the