Examples Of Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a novel about two siblings, Scout and Jem Finch growing up in Maycomb County, a very prejudice town in the 1930’s. In the beginning of the novel, the children soon become interested in the stories of their neighbor, “Boo” Radley. Boo has been locked in his house his whole life, so the children start to believe the stories of how scary and dangerous he is. Soon after, Boo starts to leave Jem and Scout gifts in an old tree when Atticus, their father, gets assigned to defend a black man. As the trial was coming up, Atticus had to prepare to prove that the black man, Tom Robinson, didn't rape a white woman. At the trial, Jem and Scout had to watch an innocent black man be accused of rape because of the prejudice in Maycomb. One thing from the book that I liked was how prejudice taught Scout and Jem Finch about the reality of life. The prejudice in Maycomb prepared the children for how the world felt about blacks. In the novel, when Calpurnia took the children to a black church Scout realized that blacks didn’t get the same treatment as whites. For example, Scout noticed that in the black church many of them did not know how to read, unlike her. Prejudice in Maycomb helped the children understand the sad reality of life in Maycomb.

In the courtroom, where everyone should be treated equally, blacks were still convinced of crimes that they might not have done. For example, when Tom Robinson was accused of raping a white woman, even though there wasn't any proof, he was found guilty. Another thing that I didn't like was how many of the ladies in the town felt bad for poor Mrunas who lived on the other side world. The ladies wanted to help them, but they didn’t realize that many blacks in their own town were poor and mistreated. Blacks in Maycomb were treated unfairly and with little