During the early 1900s , racism was dominating the south. Jim Crow Laws gave blacks little rights and made it almost impossible to live a normal life. In court, judges and juries were filled with white men. Biases and racism over run court rulings. A black man winning a trial over a white man was unheard of. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates the difficulties of being a black man on trial. Tom Robinson, a black man, is on trial for a crime that he did not commit. Atticus Finch, Tom’s lawyer and the father of Jem and Scout, attempts to overcome the barriers of racism and keep an innocent man from being found guilty. In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the symbolic significance of the snowman and fire, the mad
A pivotal moment of the history of the United States is the segregation of blacks. Although they were both provided with race-containing facilities, blacks were still not equal to whites. This is because of the Plessy v. Ferguson case and separate but equal laws. It came to the Supreme Court when it was said that the 13th and 14th Amendments were violated; the court enacted upon the separate but equal laws after the trial to isolate blacks from whites. The Plessy v. Ferguson trial and separate but equal laws was unfair towards black citizens due to the discriminatory social standards set against them.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, there are many different types of reactions, and point of views to the verdict of Tom Robinson. Robinson, being a man accused of rape, is an African American. Maycomb townspeople are racist, therefore there will be an unfair ending to the verdict. The townspeople, the children, and Atticus all have different views of this. The townspeople feel as if the right thing was done, charging Tom as guilty. The children feel it was unfair, but then again they are naïve to the racism. Atticus appears unmoved at the verdict.
Atticus was a white male lawyer who took the case of a African American man named Tom Robinson while today that would be normal but in the 1930’s it was not. Despite it not being normal in that time period Mr. Atticus Finch took the Tom Robinson case and tried
Boo Radley is prejudged because he never came out of his domicile. Boo Radley never brought harm to anybody, he just choose to stay in his domicile and never come out. Tom Robinson is prejudged because he has black skin and not white skin. Atticus Finch becomes a victim of prejudice when he helps defend a innocent black man in court; Tom Robinson. Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are prejudged; do to the fact that prejudice is so inclusive, the people who help the "mockingbirds", like Atticus,easily become victims of prejudice. Many of the people who live in Maycomb gossip and spread rumors about Boo Radley because he chooses to always stay in his domicile, while Tom Robinson is stereotyped by
Atticus Finch of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird tackled the task of defending the case of Tom Robinson who was accused of raping Mayella Ewell. For the closing statement of Atticus was moving speech that could not determine the fate of Tom Robinson’s verdict. Atticus used artistic proofs, anaphora, and multiple other persuasive tools to connect with his audience and to prove to the jury that Tom Robinson was innocent. Even with the substantial evidence against the Ewell’s testimony the prejudice and racism that was being shown to the black community in Maycomb overcame the truth. In Atticus’s closing statement he attempted to create people of all races equal in the court
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a young girl by the name of Jean Finch and her brother Jeremy Finch go through events that teach them multiple different life lessons like changing their perspectives to other peoples before judging them. This ties in the meaning of the mockingbird which represents innocence because it causes no harm to anyone; to judge or to harm it proves that one does not understand its perspective.
In Harper Lee's coming of age book To Kill a Mockingbird unfair judgements affected characters coming from different upbringings. And although Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson came from different backgrounds they both had similar experiences regarding prejudice. To begin, both Boo and Tom have had trouble with the law through different incidents. For example, as a white child with a high socioeconomic status he was arrested for harassing a beadle when he was in a gang. He was arrested, and was going to be sent to an institution with the rest of the offenders, but as a foot washing baptist his father had no mercy decided to keep him locked up in the jail. Likewise, Tom Robinson was arrested after he was attacked in a bar by another black man. However, in Tom's case he was a black man
Atticus Finch’s closing remarks to the jury consisting of white men, towards a case involving the accused rape of a young woman by a black man, are arguably the strongest words spoken within the entirety of To Kill a Mockingbird. During this monologue, Harper Lee establishes a resigned tone and uses the tone to establish a universal theme of the struggle for equality. Despite knowing the true cause of Mayella Ewell’s injuries, Atticus knew he would lose the case. And, as unfortunate as this was, he accepted that for he had tried his best. During his speech he says time and time again that Tom Robinson is not guilty and that the entire case was futile. He first states that “the defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this courtroom is,” implying that
“That all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women... Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson 's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted.. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men."-Atticus (Lee. pg 217). Atticus accepts Tom for a person and he knows Tom is innocent and telling the truth. The jury on the other which is predominantly white can not accept Tom based on the fact that he is black even though the evidence points to him being innocent.
Atticus said to Jem one day, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird,”(pg. 92) In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch teaches his children not not to kill mockingbirds because they are innocent; all they do is help and get treated poorly. All throughout the novel multiple people are seen as “mockingbirds”. In the novel, Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo (Arthur) Radley are all metaphorically portrayed as mockingbirds because they all try to help others, yet they are mistreated.
Who are the blue jays and mockingbirds of To Kill A Mockingbird? Set in the early 1930’s of America, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is a coming-of-age book that tells the story of an innocent, naive child becoming an adult through the experience and intake of racism, discrimination, and social injustice throughout the book. Harper Lee’s development, usage and characterization of her characters throughout To Kill A Mockingbird help establish two of her most important themes of the book, which are the presence of social injustice and the coexistence of good and evil.
Lee uses Miss Gates’s ironic views of Hitler and Tom’s trial to show how racial prejudice causes crimes against African Americans to be considered less than crimes committed against white people. A mockingbird is then used to symbolize Tom Robinson as an innocent person wrongly convicted of a crime because of his skin color. The misunderstood characterization of Arthur Radley shows how society will let prejudice guide their imaginated view on the lives of people they don't understand. All three characters provide examples of how a preconceived opinion of one person or a whole race can cause drastic misunderstandings and
In the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, there are many important messages shown throughout the book. However the primary focus was set on racial prejudice that existed in the 1930s-1940’s in the fictional town of Maycomb County.The racism in the novel was very much a reality in 1930s-1940s America. A very good example of the racial prejudice that existed was in the courtroom during Tom Robinson’s trial, an innocent Negro man held against his will for a crime he did not commit.
Billy Graham said, “Racism and injustice and violence sweep our world, bringing a tragic harvest of heartache and death.” Harper Lee depicts this in To Kill a Mockingbird by illustrating racism through Tom Robinson’s unjust trial. The novel is set in the 1930s in a small southern town in Alabama called Maycomb. In the town, a black man named Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. The people of Maycomb are quick to accuse Tom due to his race. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the motif of racism to convey the theme that African Americans were dehumanized and not given equitable treatment during the 1930s in Alabama through Tom running away from the Ewells at the time of the alleged assault, the jury convicting Tom, and talk of Tom’s death being expected of him.