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Examples Of Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

903 Words4 Pages

Louise Champagne
Mrs. Lindsay
Language Arts
4 March 2023
Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird
Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on actual experience. It can drastically affect people’s everyday life. Prejudice also plays a strong role in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee shows prejudice throughout her novel in many ways. Some of these include Scout’s opinion of Boo Radley, Aunt Alexandra forbidding Scout to have Walter Cunningham over for dinner, and the jury convicting Tom Robinson despite there being no evidence. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird demonstrates many forms of prejudice through several significant characters.
Scout has always been afraid of the Radley house because of all the rumors surrounding it. …show more content…

During his trial Mayella Ewell testifies against him. There are many holes in her story, however the main one is that the bruises on her are all on the right side of her body, suggesting that a left-handed person hit her. Her father, Bob Ewell, is left handed, while Tom Robinson’s left hand is mangled from being caught in a cotton gin. When Tom Robinson goes up to the stand to testify, he states that Mayella Ewell invited him into her home to help her get something from a shelf. He helped her, then she ran up to him and hugged him, then kissed him on the cheek and told him to kiss her back. Bob Ewell, as told by Tom Robinson, then yells “you goddamn whore, I’ll kill ya” (Lee 104). Bob Ewell knows he is beneath many white people, but still believes his family is better than the black people. When he sees his daughter kissing Tom, he views that as extremely shameful, for Mayella, and for the family. This causes him to come up with the lie of Tom Robinson raping Mayella. It is clear to the reader that Tom did not rape Mayella, and Atticus states to the jury, “This case is as simple as black and white. The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place” (Lee 108). However, even after all that Atticus proved, the jury convicted Tom Robinson, who later died trying to escape prison. The jury came into the trial believing that all black men were not to be trusted, or were criminals. They convicted Tom Robinson before they even met him, because of their

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