Examples Of Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

When the phrase Jim Crow is uttered, many people feel a rush of inept thoughts and bad memories due to the social taboo against talking of the lowest point in America’s history. Jim Crow was not just a set of laws aimed to oppress the lives of all black people, but a movement by the citizens, black or white, that caused a corrupt mindset in all men and women. Many people tried to stop the social force from continuing in individual spurts of courage, but they were not able to stop Jim Crow as individuals. An individual’s own personal courage cannot fight against Jim Crow, because a single person would not be able to stop an entire movement embedded into the minds of millions of people, not to mention how the social pressure against it was too strong to even fathom fighting against it.

In today's society men, women and children experience prejudice in their lives, either as victims themselves or being guilty of using prejudice towards others due to differences between them. Prejudice is a preconception of a person based on stereotypes without real facts and discrimination based on gender, age and skin colour. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee isolates characters and depicts ways prejudice is used. She also demonstrates the evils of prejudice and the negative consequences that lie in the city of Maycomb. By taking the reader, step by step, through various real life situations, and analyzing the impact of prejudice on people's lives, she manages to go to the root of the problem in attempting to eliminate prejudice.

Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird has many examples of prejudice. The prejudice presented is against people such as Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, and Boo Radley. Each is discriminated against either because of the color of their skin, who they represent in court, or just how much they isolate themselves from the town. Harper Lee’s stance on racial prejudice is that it is a foolish practice, no matter who does it. Prejudice is a very large part of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Racial intolerance is cruel it puts other people down to make a person feel better about themselves. Although racial intolerance was abundant in the 1930’s, it is still here today, making To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee relevant to today. It still can be learnt from To Kill a Mockingbird that harming somebody because they look different is wrong and extremely mean. The 1930’s was when people focused more on how people looked rather than how they felt. The 21st century is still focused on how people look and judge them based on how they dress.

In To Kill A Mockingbird Boo Radley is a man who always stays shut up inside of his house which causes many rumors about him to be spread around the town. For instance, at the end of chapter 14 it’s stated “Dill?”/ “Mm?”/ “Why do you reckon Boo Radley’s never run off?”/ Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me./ “Maybe he doesn 't have anywhere to run off to…” This shows how Boo Radley is emotionally struggling because people always are assuming things about him that can cause him to feel uncomfortable around others. At the end of the book Boo Radley acts afraid of everything like when it says “Will You take me home?’ He almost whispered it, in the voice of a child afraid of the dark.”

“‘I don’t like it, Atticus, I don’t like it at all,’ was Aunt Alexandra’s assessment of these events. ‘That man seems to have a permanent running grudge against everybody connected with that case. I know how that kind are about paying off grudges, but I don’t understand why he should harbor one—he had his way in court, didn’t he?’” (335) From intruding a judge’s house to humiliating and harassing Helen Robinson, Bob Ewell is consistently intimidating Maycomb. Atticus is not a perfect character because he doesn’t realize that his weakness is not believing that Bob is mistreating the town.

In Maycomb, people fear what they do not know and what is unusual to them, hence shaping the rumours of Boo Radley to cope with the unknown. Considering he is unseen from the public eye, and has a messy past, many begin to fantasize what is happening with him currently by constructing stories. Anyone who claims that they know information on Boo, have no proof or firsthand experience to support it as the truth. Scout knows that Jem’s information source on Boo Radley is from another individual and their fantasies, “So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighbourhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing.”

They are told that the person that lives there is named boo radley and that he an evil monster who has been locked up in his house for the rest of his life because he stabbed his father with scissors when he was young. “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” (Lee 65). This quote shows the way the people of the village looked at Boo Radley even though they have not actually seen it for themselves. Throughout the story, there are not many people who have encounters with Boo Radley.

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.

Mass entertainment, such as book, films, and TV, capture glimpses of the harsh realities many face, from the racial abuse endured by Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird to the inner workings of a deranged dictator in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. When censorship comes in to erase these themes, it’s essentially brainwashing readers, and to an extent, the public, into believing that the world is this pure, saintly place of wholesome perfection when that is far from the truth. For instance, the society depicted by Ray Bradbury in his science-fiction magnum opus, Fahrenheit 451, is a vapid one devoid of emotions and imagination who are driven by government propaganda to think, act, and believe a certain way. Captain Beatty, the fire chief, summed it up perfectly when he stated,

In To Kill A Mockingbird, the novel shows prejudice. Prejudice is when you judge someone because of their race, how they look, or where they come from. In our world, when you see a gangster, you think he already killed someone or he is a bad guy but he is not. The novel is shown in a kid 's point of view because kids need to know not to judge people just by looking at them. Being prejudice is a really disrespectful.

People are More than a Color People in the world today are often found not to get along, because of different backgrounds of ethnicity. Many people will say they dislike someone because of their personality just to hide that on the inside they really disapprove of their color. Those who conform to such idiotic thoughts based on race are the people that prevent this country from progressing due to their unwillingness to critically think wholeheartedly about significant racial issues, but choose to rely on past false perceptions without understanding the complexities of racial issues.. The story To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee conveys how social inequality, good and evil, and moral education contribute to racial stereotypes.

People fear Quality because Quality is unique for each individual. Quality involves going deep into one’s self, and people may not be entirely happy with what they find. However, failure to fit in can be even more devastating. At the beginning of A Brave New World, Bernard is almost ignored altogether from society because of his appearance. A similar situation also occurs in The Bluest Eye, Pecola and the rest of the black community

Jason is stuck in the past and cannot move forward because of the hate that he has for Caddy. He becomes “a laughing stock in the town” and does nothing productive to improve his life. Jason holds onto the grudge he has for Caddy and thinks that blaming her and stealing from Ms. Quentin will improve his life in some way. Jason is never able to become successful and is stuck in his current situation because he cannot forgive Caddy. Jason’s anger in his past prevents him from being productive and doing something that will improve his life in the

Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird Prejudice in the 1950s was a problem and it still is in 2017. When it comes to the topic of prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee conveys it is important that before judging someone, get to know them better. One example of prejudice Harper Lee uses in To Kill a Mockingbird is Tom Robinson. In the small town of Maycomb almost everyone assumes Tom is guilty of raping Mayella Ewell even though there is no evidence or reasoning.