Examples Of Social Hierarchy In To Kill A Mockingbird

Eyden I. once said in a book called Woman’s Book: Only For Men “Morals are like social classes there are poor and rich people.” There are always complications between the rich and the poor people in nearly all topics. Just like the quote stated, the rich and poor are always found in morals as well as social class, social hierarchy, in public, and in the government. Finally, this topic is really prominent in literature. Being provided books to read in my HWOC class, I come to a conclusion to synthesize how social hierarchy is shown through the words of the authors of To Kill a Mockingbird, A Raisin in the Sun, and American Denial and reveal the social hierarchy between different races to demonstrate the struggle and eventually blockage non-whites

To begin with, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, demonstrates social hierarchy in the town of Maycomb, Alabama through characters and human geography. In the story, Aunt Alexandra tell Scout that she cannot invite Walter Cunningham home after school because he is “trash”. Scout doesn’t understand why she said this a Jem tried to explain it to her. In the text it says, “There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like is and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the negroes.” (Chapter 23). In this excerpt, Jem explains how the social class hierarchy of Maycomb is. Also, Jem elaborates further saying how each class hates each other. For example, the Finches dislike the Cunninghams due of their lack of interest in education. The Cunningham’s dislike the Ewell’s because they depend on the government to live and can’t work hard themselves. Finally, the Ewell's dislike the Negroes because of their skin color. This system of social hierarchy is extremely prejudice and unfair, but the town still is thriving and prosperous. In addition, Harper Lee used setting and human geography to show social

When the Youngers received their check, Lena Younger went out a bought a house in Clybourne Park, a white neighborhood, without consulting with the family. The next day, a guy named Mr. Lindner came to their apartment and claimed that he was part of the welcoming committee. In the text it says, “LINDNER .... I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it. It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.” This shows social hierarchy and the struggle because the white people are discriminating against the black by saying that they should stay where they belong with the others. Human geography is implemented into this situation as well. Chicago follows a mix of a sector and a concentric zone model of urbanization. In both of these models, the low-class residential and industry jobs were close together. The blacks mostly lived on the South side of Chicago because during the 1900’s most of the jobs and industry that blacks worked at was close. Given that nearly all blacks were poor during the time due to the struggle they had in order to achieve or live