Theme Of Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Pure Injustice William Goodwin once said “No man knows the value of innocence and integrity but he who has lost them.” In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout Finch, a young girl, lives with her brother Jem and her father Atticus, a prominent lawyer, in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Due to Atticus’ high moral standards, he feels obligated to take on a case where he defends Tom Robinson, an African American. Robinson is being wrongfully accused of raping Mayella Ewell, who is part of the most disgraced family in the town. Throughout the book, the Finch children realize the extreme prejudice and social inequality of Maycomb. Harper Lee develops the metaphor of a mockingbird to illustrate how people who defy social norms are critiqued, misconstrued, and discriminated against by others. To begin, Dolphus Raymond is a wealthy white man who has an African American mistress and children of mixed race. He is constantly judged by the townspeople due to the fact that he is constantly in a drunk and prefers to be with the blacks rather than with his own race. During the trial, however, Scout and Dill realize that he actually is drinking Coke and is using it as a cover so the community can justify his actions. His reasoning for this is that "When I come to town… if I weave a little and drink out of this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymond 's in the clutches of whiskey—that 's why he won 't change his ways. He can 't help himself, that 's why