Evil And Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

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. People don’t like Tom because of the color of his skin. Classmates and others were not happy and teasing her because her father defends an African American person. (Lee, 110) Tom is convicted of raping Mayella, Bob Ewell’s daughter. After all the evidence presented, it was clear Tom was being

As shown in chapter twenty four, Aunt Alexandra invites women from her Missionary Society over and tells Scout to help Calpurnia serve. Scout wears a dress which is unusual because she always wore overalls or pants. At the tea party, Grace Merriweather begins talking about helping poor people in Africa. (Lee, 313) She talks about "helping" the people of Africa, but she would never treat them as equals. She has a poor view of the African American people of Maycomb but she talks about “helping” them. She is a hypocrite and would never help them. Atticus comes home and tells Calpurnia, Aunt Alexandra, Miss Maudie, and Scout that Tom tried to escape from prison and was killed. (Lee,315) Aunt Alexandra, Miss Maudie, and Scout return to the party and act as if nothing happened. “Aunt Alexandra rose and smothered the various whalebone ridges along her hips. She took her handkerchief from her belt and wiped her nose. She patted her hair and said, do I show it?” (Lee 317). Scout learns from Aunt Alexandra that by not telling Mrs. Merriweather about what happened, she denied her the pleasure of finding this out. Scout liked that because she knew Mrs. Merriweather was a hypocrite and did not like African American people and would find it satisfying that Tom died. By the end of the tea party, Aunt Alexandra grew to be more respectful to others and grew to be more caring towards others of different races and