Disunification In To Kill A Mockingbird

Sofia Martinez

Mrs. Keisha Lennon

Language Arts 9

January 19, 2023

Rough Draft: Literary Analysis Final Draft: Literary Analysis

Violent disunity, wrongful conviction, untimely death. The character Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird represents or symbolizes all the black people who are treated wrongly. Tom Robinson is a black man in the book. He was wrongfully convicted of raping a girl when he was only helping her. Tom is then tried in court without a fair trial, but mostly because of his race, Tom was physically unable to beat or rape the girl. There was a lawyer who was set to help defend Tom. His name is Atticus; he is a very honorable man, and he is the father of the narrator (Scout). Atticus did his best to defend Tom

All people are the same inside; they have no reason to be separated. An example of disunification is when Atticus’s children go to church with Calpurnia (their black cook and nanny), and when they get there, some people are bothered, especially Lula (a church member). She talks to Calpurnia about it. "You ain’t got no business bringin‘ white chillun here —they got their church, we got our n" (Lee 158). Lula is not happy that white children are at the black church. Lula thinks it is not where white people should be. According to her and some other people, the kids do not belong there. Faith should promote unification, and all people should be together worshiping together. Not all have their own church and worship separately, but in this society in Maycomb, race is more important. Race divides people when they should be united. It leads to destruction because people can’t empathize and won’t consider others. As people can see, disunity can lead to misfortune and shatter society. Another time when the disunity of the citizens is shown is when Atticus went downtown and guarded the prison, which was where Tom was being kept. Suddenly, many people came in a mob to get Atticus to leave and give them Robinson. They were willing to even attack Atticus just to get into the prison and get Tom. Later, when Atticus is talking to his kids, Jem and Scout, about the mob, he explains, "A mob’s

When Atticus was defending Tom, he knew they had lost the court case, but he still made a final argument and tried to show the jury how unfair the court case was and that it was only because of prejudice: "The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box." At that time, all people in court are supposed to have a fair trial, no matter their race or where they come from. But people do not do that; they carry their hatred and bitterness into the court, and the court is not ruled fairly. Tom was only convicted because of his color and other people’s hatred and bitterness, not because of the truth. Also, a little before the final argument, Jem was convinced they had won because it was shown that it was physically impossible for Tom to rape Mayella because his left arm was crippled and useless. The person that had raped Mayella had to have been left-handed; Jem was so sure of this that he "was pounding the balcony rail softly, and once he whispered, "We’ve got him"... make him out left-handed... His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and it hung dead at his side. "It ended in a small shriveled hand, and from as far away as the balcony, I could see that it was no use to him" (Lee 238, 240, 248). Jem