Examples Of Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

PREJUDICE

I always thought prejudice always came in one form; appearance. But by reading and watching this semester, I’ve learned that it comes in the form of religious beliefs, wealth, and reputation, also. Over the course of the first semester in this English class, we learned about themes like prejudice, mercy, materialism, hatred, revenge, and courage by reading 3 books and spending a while learning about the Holocaust (watched 2 movies and read a Holocaust book of our choice, as well as presentations throughout). I’m going to focus on the theme of prejudice in the units that we studied. Reading and watching of all of the pieces, I’ve realized that there’s a lot more forms of prejudice than just the few that I have been introduced

Let’s start with the main form of prejudice shown in the book; the prejudice shown towards Tom Robinson at his trial. The jury was said to be made up of all white males, some of whom are said to be prejudice toward black people. Atticus says, “Those are twelve reasonable men in everyday life, Tom’s jury, but you saw something come between them and reason. You saw the same thing that night in front of the jail. When that crew went away, they didn’t go as reasonable men, they went because we were there. There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads-they couldn’t be fair if they tried”. (Lee 220). The thing that was coming in between the men in my mind was the basic prejudice against black people. There was a Cunningham on the jury, someone that Bob Ewell probably tried to persuade that all black people were bad people and weren’t like white people. That’s just one of the examples of prejudice against Tom Robinson, there’s also more prejudice shown toward the Cunninghams and Boo

The Jewish man’s offer is that if the Christian doesn’t pay the loan back in time, Shylock gets to take a pound of flesh off of Antonio. Shylock makes the bond personal like this because Antonio has been a jerk to Shylock because he is Jewish. It is stated that Antonio spits in his face at the market and calls him prejudice names. Shylock says, “He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies-and what’s his reason? I am a Jew.” (3.1. 53-57). Shylock shows here that being prejudice can come back to