ipl-logo

Essay On Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

705 Words3 Pages

Prejudice is all around us. In our schools, workplaces, towns, even our homes. People hate others over ridiculous things. Things like skin color, or financial stability. Where they are from, things their family has done. Predjudice is all around us and it is prevalent in the books To Kill a Mockingbird, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Merchant of Venice, and Those Who Save Us. First is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In this book there is a court case between Tom Robinson, a black man and Mayella Ewell, a white woman. In the case Mayella accuses Tom of raping and beating her. She was beat on the right side of her face which means that the culprit was left handed. Tom Robinson got his left hand stuck in a cotton gin …show more content…

He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers” To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee pg, 74. Cecil’s parents must have told him about Atticus defending Tom and decided it was acceptable to influence their child with racism against this innocent man and other innocent people like him. Next is, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This book is about a boy named Junior who lives on a Indian reservation and wants to be sucessful and wants to do more with his life. He knows the only way to do anything with his life is to leave the reservation and go to an all white school outside the rez. He was seen as a traitor by his own tribe and an outsider in the white school. “‘Hey, Chief, you want to hear a joke?’ ‘Sure’ I said ‘Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo?’” The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TIme Indian Sherman Alexie pg,64. That comment made by Roger at the white school was the most rasict thing Junior had ever heard. Junior responded by punching him which is what would have been expected on the reservation. The boys from Reardan were just shocked and didn’t do anything. That really shows the difference between the schools on the reservation and

Show More
Related
1965 Words | 8 Pages

Triple Entry: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey Quote Analysis Synthesis "She’s swelling up, swells till her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times. She looks around her with a swivel of her huge head.... So she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big" (5).

Read More
202 Words | 1 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird is famous for its controversy. In fact, it has been banned from being read at many schools for its use of racial, sexual, and political content, all of these aiding the book’s “big ideas”. To Kill a Mockingbird has many themes. For example, one is about racial injustice. You would think a jury would establish their final decision based upon the facts, but in this book, the jury had already made up its mind once it heard that the case was a white man versus a black man.

Read More
781 Words | 4 Pages

Argument for Banning “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” Book in Middle Schools Published in 2007, “The Absolutely True Diary of Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie says about the moving story of a Native American teenager named Arnold Spirit who made the bold decision to attend an all-white high school from Spokane reservation to find hope for the future in the Reardan. This volume won the National Book Award in 2007 and won several other awards. Even though this novel can be power of education, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” paperback should be banned because this is not appropriate for middle schools.

Read More
433 Words | 2 Pages

In a few scenes of the the grades one through twelve the short story “Indian Education,” by the Native American author and filmmaker Sherman Alexie is able to show us what it is like growing up in the white, American culture. Sherman Alexie is able to give us a glimpse of the differences of what it means to be in a non-white student area that is struggling due to the effects of colonization. Even though it has been many years since the European explores “found” North America, the settlers and government continued to expand into Indian territories. The Native Americans gradually saw their land and culture diminishing as they were relocated to reservations. The feelings of oppression become obvious through the eyes of Victor, a young boy.

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.

Read More
499 Words | 2 Pages

Similarly, in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is presumed guilty of a crime that he did not commit because he is black. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men features a character, Lennie Small, who is left out or made fun of because of his mental problems. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie has light skin and hair, heavily contrasting the darker pigmentation of her neighbors. Because of this, her neighbors believe that she is stuck up and that she thinks that she is better than they

Read More
1146 Words | 5 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee tells a story of racial prejudice during the Depression and how it is combated. The main development in the novel is that a Atticus, the father of Scout and Jem, has been appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a young white woman named Mayella. Many people in the town of Maycomb, particularly people involved with the case of Tom, have a negative attitude towards African Americans. Prejudice was a terrible issue in the South during the Depression, but Atticus Finch shows that racial injustice can be combated in two main ways, each having different levels of effectiveness.

Read More
1155 Words | 5 Pages

Scout is only a six year old child who hasn’t yet experienced evil in the world and she soon discovers what evil is all about. In chapter 9, her father defends Tom Robinson, an African American man, and she gets to experience evil firsthand. Cecil Jacobs insults Scout’s father, “Cecil Jacobs made me forget. He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers.” (Lee pg. 99) Scout sees evil and prejudice.

Read More
1253 Words | 6 Pages

Cultural norms are what make and shape a society. They are the guidelines, and or patterns, that are to be followed, in order to be considered a normal, typical, everyday citizen. As such, it does not matter if the norms are right or wrong. As long as the citizen is still a part of their society, right and wrong does not matter, as far as they are concerned. In the case of To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the cultural norm, of Maycomb County, embraces the wrong, in the form of extreme prejudice behavior.

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

In the book Atticus and the members of the court system express the reach of prejudice, justice, and fairness in the justice system. The justice system was filled with prejudice. In the book it states, “ Now don 't you be so confident, Mr. Jem I ain 't ever seen a jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…”(279). Reverend Sykes is witnessing the trial of Tom Robinson.

Read More
1157 Words | 5 Pages

How did prejudice happen in this world that God made? Prejudice is an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. In this world, there are a lot of prejudice. Prejudice doesn´t happen suddenly but it happens from a root. Everything happens from a root and that causes to be or do something.

Read More
921 Words | 4 Pages

What if the world was still the same as it was back during the great depression. What if this was the truth. In To Kill a Mockingbird readers can see how prejudice affected people of color back then, and how it’s not so different from today. In the novel readers will find unfairness in court, hate crimes, and segregation. Today readers can still find these same issues, but in different forms.

Read More
866 Words | 4 Pages

In the South of the United States in the 1930´s, the justice system was very unfair towards colored people. Colored people that were sent to court could not receive a fair trial because of the prejudice and racism from the jury. This happened all the time, especially in Maycomb Alabama. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a colored man named Tom Robinson was convicted of assaulting a white woman just because of the color of his skin. Tom Robinson should have been found not guilty for many reasons.

Read More
440 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
1386 Words | 6 Pages

Rajan Dosanjh Mrs. Haber ENG 1D0A January 18, 2017 To Kill A Mockingbird Theme Essay Discrimination is a societal issue which has been prevalent for a long time and still brings people down in today’s society. Discrimination can be defined by the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex (www.dictionary.com) Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird is based in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb where a man named Atticus Finch is appointed to defend a man named Tom Robinson who was accused of raping a teenage girl.

Read More

More about Essay On Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Related Topics

Open Document