To Kill A Mockingbird In Harper Lee’s southern gothic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, a rural town is overcome with racial injustice, prejudice, and inequality faced by the misfortuned African-Americans in Maycomb, Alabama. During this time a well-known and respected family’s story is shown through the eyes of Scout Finch. Atticus, the father, accepts a court case of an African-American man accused of “rap[ing] Mayella Ewell” (221) which teaches his children Jem, Scout, and their friend Dill, “Charles Baker Harris,” (7) valuable life lessons and builds better moral visions of their society. A time period so heavily influenced by racial acts and events led the community to see the accurate reality of the social classes and the conflicts affecting …show more content…
Tom Robinson’s case truly awoke the town with a sudden interest in the white man and his daughter versus the African-American man in the courtroom. A man with a “crippled” (211) arm not fully able to use both, meaning the “victim,” Mayella would have more of an advantage still denied justice because of his race; An innocent man trying to win his freedom back yet again denied justice. Maycomb, Alabama is so heavily bombarded with such prejudice and had one case that brought more attention and discussion to it. Evidence is revealed that Bob and Mayella were actually in the wrong but because of their race, Tom is accused and not given a full chance to be proven innocent. Harper reveals that the jury was supposed to take “just a few minutes” (239) like most cases but it took more than half an hour to reach a verdict, the spectators assumed that he would be deemed guilty based on his race even before the case started. Tom was just “one negro, more or less, among two hundred of ‘em” (269) representing a conflict in the environment in which one ethnicity is not given full opportunities and chances, disclosing the feeling of isolation coming from one side of the party. This shows how racism and injustice in the case and real life are brought to attention but