Examples Of Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Adrianna Cirillo

Mr. Moriarty

Freshman Literature and Composition

9 June 2023

The Injustice in our Justice System

There are times when society is built upon unfair principles and the idea that some groups must prosper over others. This unfair system is exactly what Harper Lee tackles in her book To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as Bryan Stevenson in his book Just Mercy. Lee’s book is set in the secluded town of Maycomb in Alabama, sometime around the 1930s. It follows the life of Atticus, a lawyer, and his two children Scout and Jem. Atticus has taken it upon himself to defend an African American man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of rape: it is clear to him that Tom didn’t do it, but the town doesn’t think so. Stevenson’s novel is

Both Stevenson and Lee explore the ideas of prejudice and how that leads to the stripping of any sort of power from certain individuals. For example, Lee uses the example of Tom Robinson to explore these ideas. Tom is an African American man that is on trial for his life. Atticus describes it well when talking to the jurors about Mayella, when he says, “She did something that in our society is unspeakable; she kissed a black man”(Lee 272). If Mayella had kissed anyone else, this wouldn’t have been a problem at all. But since Tom Robinson is an African American, it becomes a crime and something Mayella is ashamed of. Tom Robinson had done nothing against the law, but since he is an African American man and because of the stereotypes and prejudice that come along with that, the Ewells chose decisively to lie and now he is on trial for his life. Because of who he is, he has so little power compared to the Ewells. Steveson uses the same situation when describing the lack of power certain groups hold. When describing Walter’s case, he said, “Hundreds of black men have been lynched for even unsubstantiated suggestions of such intimacy”(Stevenson 29). All these men are being accused of the same crime that Tom Robinson was, and because of the color of their skin, their word means less than someone else's. It also shows that

For Stevenson, it was himself, hopeful and ambitious, as a young lawyer, and for Lee, it was her award-winning character Atticus, also a lawyer. For Atticus, the people of Maycomb can’t see any reason he should try to defend Tom Robinson, but he does anyway. One of the people really didn’t like it and felt the need to comment: “Yeah, but Atticus aims to defend him. That’s what I don’t like about it”(Lee 218). This person is showing their own prejudice when saying that he doesn’t want Atticus to defend Tom, but it’s showing how Atticus, full of valor, still does it even though almost no one in the town is with him. Atticus knows that without him Tom doesn’t stand a chance, and even with him they don’t get Tom acquitted, but that doesn’t stop him from trying because he knows it’s the right thing to do. Stevenson does it differently when talking about his younger self. He described the person he was as a young college student as someone who “. . . would have something to do with the lives of the poor, America’s history of racial inequality, and the struggle to be equitable and fair with one another”(Stevenson 4). Stevenson know what he wanted to do, and that was the help people. He saw the system for what it was, which is an unequal justice system. He wanted to do something about it in his career, and he