Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird , Jem illustrates prejudice by being biased towards Boo because of her fear of him. In her description of Boo, she describes him as a "6-and-a-half-foot tall man who eats raw squirrels and cats. His hands are blood stained because he eats raw animals. There is a long-jagged scar that runs across his face; his teeth are yellow and rotten; his eyes pop, and he drools most of the time" (Lee.14).
During this time it was unpopular to associate with African-Americans, let alone defend them in court. It is shown in To Kill a Mockingbird, that basic human prejudice gets in the way of rational thought. In her novel Tom’s court case, Boo Radley, and the old woman were all symbols of this main theme. With Boo Radley, Scout and Jem had prejudice against him without even have seen him, though he ends up saving their lives. Then with the old woman she shows prejudice against Atticus and his children just because he is defending an African-American.
Prejudice is an unreasonable opinion formed without enough prior knowledge to be fair and completely accurate. This happens in How To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and it takes place in Maycomb, Alabama. This is shown by the jury when Atticus gives more than enough information for Tom Robinson to be innocent. But the jury has a prejudice when it comes to blacks and whites. This is shown when they won let women watch the trail.
The Prejudice of Maycomb Prejudice is an unreasonable opinion formed without enough prior knowledge to be fair and completely accurate. This happens in How To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and it takes place during the 1930´s in Maycomb, Alabama. Prejudice is shown by the jury when Atticus gives more than enough information for Tom Robinson to be proven innocent. But the jury shows prejudice when it comes to blacks. Gender prejudice is shown when they won´t let women be a part of the jury.
In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are examples of Boo Radley being a symbolism for prejudice. Boo Radley is being judged and thought of as “a Malevolent phantom”, by others in Maycomb and the main characters Scout and Jem even though “Jem and I [Scout] had never seen him” (Lee 10). Jem and Scout have a negative thinking towards Boo Radley despite that they have never met one another.
Prejudice is an inevitable aspect of society that has affected people in negative lights. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout demonstrates her growth in understanding social issues that occur in the typical American society of Maycomb, where discrimination occurs towards both the lower-income population and racial minority. Calpurnia acts like a parental figure to inspire Scout of the invisible yet existing prejudice towards the economically disadvantaged people. When Jem invites Walter Cunningham to dine at his house, Scout disappoints Calpurnia by disrespecting Walter at the dinner table. Due to the sense of responsibility in the family, Calpurnia calls her out to educate her that, “‘[no] matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates how prejudices are generalized. This novel depicts how the family of Scout, Jem, and Atticus live with differing opinions in the prejudiced town of Maycomb, Alabama. When a black man Tom Robinson, is being accused of raping a young white girl Mayella Ewell, Atticus defends Tom in the court case. Atticus was able to hold out the jury but was unable to win the case over the biased town. Harper Lee emphasizes that society will often create prejudices and generalize them onto people of different groups by events including Tom Robinson's death, Scout's feelings toward women, and Aunt Alexandra’s thoughts on the Cunninghams.
The child is innocent and curious, fluid and thinking, rash and developing. Therefore as time goes on, a child will take on the opinions of others. Throughout To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, the children of the story, Scout, Jem, Francis, and Dill, are faced with an environment of prejudice towards others. The people of this environment spread their beliefs and change the children’s minds time and time again. Their views are molded by the people who interact with them causing their innocence and perspectives to be in constant flux.
Jem, Dill, and Scout acted unjustly towards Boo Radley. They made assumptions, taunted, and harassed Boo while also violating his right to privacy. Tom Robinson’s case was unjust. That is made clear by the all white jury. It is also made clear by Atticus’s statement about white men and black men and by the fact that Tom was convicted without any evidence against him.
Sharma Mrs.Cangialosi English 10 E 1 March 2015 Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird Anywhere and at anytime prejudice can and has affected all groups of people no matter what who it is. Specifically, in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, prejudice roamed around Maycomb County like a ghost during the 1930's. The inequality between different type of people was just a way of life in the South at this time and Scout, the main character of this novel goes through the novel witnessing the unfairness that happens in her world. Scout grew up with these preconceptions built into her and that by the end of the book she matures from these perceived notions about the people around her. As Scout goes through the novel many forms of prejudice
Based on the rumours told by Miss Stephanie Crawford, the children’s misinformed curiosity concerning this man is the beginning of their summertime goal of learning about Boo Radley at the start of the novel. The initial incident of the plot concerning the children and Boo Radley is based only on information that is full of prejudice. Maycomb society in the 1930s holds prejudicial views of its Black citizens based on generations of racism. The main conflict in the novel involves Atticus’s struggle to defend Tom Robinson, a Black man on trial for allegedly harming a white woman. Recognizing society’s opinions on Black people, Atticus pleads with the jury to consider things from a different point of
But also like Scout, he was still affected by it in ways that destroyed his innocence. Boo Radley’s father was an ignorant and extremely racist individual, like the majority of the White inhabitants of Maycomb. When Boo was a child he had been running with the wrong crowd and got himself into some trouble with the law. He was put on trial and should have been sent to a juvenile detention center, however, the detention center was not segregated and because his father was so racist he negotiated with the judge and locked Boo in his house for his entire life, causing him to be disconnected from society and lose his innocence due to the unjust ways of his father. Although racism was a primary reasoning for the destruction of Boo Radley's innocence, ignorance still plays a major role.
Boo Radley had been kept in isolation for so long, he didn’t know how to communicate or socialise properly. He has been misunderstood as a malevolent person, when he actually is a benevolent person. He displays this when he put a blanket around Scout, whilst she and Jem watched the fire. As readers, we are shown social prejudice by the assumptions made about the Radley’s. Another example of social prejudice is the
Essay In the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, there are many important messages shown throughout the book. However the primary focus was set on racial prejudice that existed in the 1930s-1940’s in the fictional town of Maycomb County. The racism in the novel was very much a reality in 1930s-1940s America. A very good example of the racial prejudice that existed was in the courtroom during Tom Robinson’s trial, an innocent Negro man held against his will for a crime he did not commit.
The idea of To Kill a Mockingbird is to show how characters and people are not always what we initially believe them to be. In the story, there are multiple cases where people were judged and treated differently because they assumed grim things about them. One of the cases was with Boo Radley, people assumed bad things about him because he only came out at night. Another case was Tom Robinson. When he was on trial, everyone thought he was guilty because of the color of his skin.
