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Examples Of Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

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The Penalties Of Prejudice

― Michael Crichton, said ““Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.” This quote is a very good baseline for a lot of the events that occur in Harper Lees ``To Kill A Mockingbird”. It states how by allowing these acts of injustice to occur you are making a choice to side with oppression. Rather than simply staying silent one must actively oppose the oppressor and fight back to eliminate these injustices. In To Kill A Mockingbird we should learn the effect of prejudice in an individual’s life because we witness several situations and examples of prejudice resulting in fear, anger, and death.

Direct impacts of prejudice towards Tom robinson

The effect of racism and classism …show more content…

Jem and Scout were also hurt by the consequences as they were made fun of in school as other children called Atticus names because of who he is choosing to defend, with people like Ms. Merriweather calling him “good but misguided” and saying that he “thought they were doing the right thing a while back but all they did was just stir ‘em up” (P311) which was clearly directed towards atticus just without mentioning his actual name. It is evident that in the novel people began to treat Atticus and the rest of the finches differently around the time of the court case. The people of Maycomb did not respect his choices to defend Tom Robinson, people insulted him and the finches saying many things involving Atticus loving black people and using very degrading names toward black people. There is another clear example of these effects of prejudice towards Atticus being Bob Ewell. During the court case against Tom Robinson, Atticus fought as hard as he could and even though Tom ended up guilty, Atticus destroyed any positive image Bob Ewell anyone ever had, if there ever was. Atticus made the choice to defend Tom and it put him and his family at risk, Bob Ewell threatened Atticus, Spat in his face, and went so far as to go after his children, Jem and Scout. These repercussions show how the acts of prejudice go farther than the initial …show more content…

Even people around these “lower classes'' are looked at with disrespect with Dolphus Raymond being a prime example of this. He simply preferred to be around coloured people and this was not something to be respected in Maycomb. This example shows the extent to which class I go to in maycomb. This level of classism and racism alludes to entitlement in the minds of the higher classes to treat people however they want as if they are there to entertain and do work, call them horrible names casually, and even kill them with no remorse. This creates a cycle of continued classism through generations. In the novel it is clear that this is an issue and people need to change the way they view others in order to appreciate, respect, and love everyone as human

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Scout learns about the prejudice the black community faces during Tom Robinson’s case. Tom is a black man accused of raping Mayella Ewell and is ultimately given a guilty verdict. After news spread of Atticus being Tom’s lawyer, people around town began calling the Finch family derogatory names. This led to Scout understanding that society doesn’t respect the black community or even treat them as equals. They believed that Tom was guilty even before the trial just because he was black.

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