Does Social Injustice Occur In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee?

What if your hometown reflected the events taking place in an entire era? For Scout Finch, her hometown of Maycomb does just that. In author Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the town of Maycomb is like a twisted thick forest that blocks a clear path to fairness and equality, and sets a model that mirrors the racial tensions and discrimination in Southern America in the 1930’s. We see this displayed in the novel through the social structure of the town, the legal system, the Tom Robinson court case, and finally how Maycomb has figures within its society that stand for hope, and change. In To Kill a Mockingbird, social injustice is displayed vividly throughout the text, especially regarding the social structure of the town. The town of Maycomb

We see this when in characters such as Calpurnia, working for cheap for the Finch family, or Tom Robinson, who ends up doing a large number of jobs for the Mayella Ewell, for free, in his travels past their residence. While the majority of the white population in Maycomb live in luxury, the black communities are forced to live in poverty and deprivation. When Calpurnia and Atticus venture out to the Robinson home, the author provides a detailed look into life outside of town in the black community. “They drove down past the dump to the Negro cabins.” During this section of the text and other sections, we see that the black community suffers from poor living conditions, living in small wood cabins, poorly built with what they could find behind the town dump. The divide between the two communities represents the racism in Maycomb and sets a model for what life was like during this period of time in the Southern

First, we see the legal system as a constant reminder of the racial injustice in this part of the world during this time. In this case, we see Atticus prove with much evidence that Tom Robinson is innocent. However, the jury decided to convict him anyway. This exposes the deep-seated prejudices of the town of Maycomb, as even though Tom is innocent, he is convicted. Throughout the

case, Harper Lee exposes the flaws in the town and its court case. Even court officials, such as the Judge, allow racist comments to fly by and go unchallenged, or even the Sheriff, who lets direct slurs at Tom without trying to stop it. Tom Robinson has done nothing wrong, and yet he is convicted solely because of the color of his skin. Even though To Kill a Mockingbird is a fictional story, real events such as these have taken place, such as the Scottsboro Boys. In 1931, close to the same time period as Harper Lee’s famous novel, nine young black men were falsely accused of raping two white prostitutes on a train in Alabama, also where Maycomb is