Examples Of Social Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Lincoln Verinsky

Miss Kannegaard

Period 5, English 1

May 2nd, 2023

To Kill a Racist Society

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird is a wonderful novel about a young girl named Scout who has to grow up in a racist 1930’s Maycomb, Alabama. To Kill a Mockingbird is written from the perspective of a girl named Scout who is an adventurous tomboy. Scout’s perspective allows us to experience racial prejudice and social justice or injustice from the eyes of someone who is only just seeing these issues for the first time. At the beginning of the novel Scout doesn’t know much about racial prejudice and so just follows the ideology of most of Maycomb County. Near the end of the book though Scout starts to realize that it is wrong for people to be

Dill was starting to feel sick at the way Mr. Gilmer was prosecuting Tom Robinson and made Scout come outside with him to help calm his stomach. While Scout and Dill are outside an allegedly drunk Dolphus Raymond comes up and starts talking to them. “He jerked his head at Dill: ‘Things haven’t caught up with that one’s instinct yet. Let him get a little older and he won’t get sick and cry. Maybe things’ll strike him as being—not quite right, say, but he won’t cry, not when he gets a few years on him.’ ‘Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?’ Dill’s maleness was beginning to assert itself. ‘Cry about the simple hell people give other people—without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people, too.’”(Online pg 205). This quote shows why Scout began to switch her point of view on what was right and wrong because of what Mr Dolphus Raymond said. Mr Raymond shows Scout and Dill how it is wrong to punish someone because of their race. Dill was already feeling bad about the way Mr Gilmer was treating Tom Robinson and I think he eagerly agreed with Dolphus Raymond that white people unconsciously are mean to African Americans. Scout still isn’t quite ready to change, but the fact that her friend started seeing that all people are essentially the same makes her start seeing the flaws in

Leading up to when Scout decided that all people are the same and so should be treated as such, Scout and Jem were talking about their family and Jem asked Scout how the Cunninghams are different. “‘No everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin’. ... Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.’ Jem turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his face was cloudy. He was going into one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while. ‘That’s what I thought, too,’ he said at last, ‘when I was your age. If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time... it’s because he wants to stay inside.’”(Online pg 231). In the quote Scout shows a naive belief of all people being the same which is good when it comes to stopping racism, but it isn’t very realistic because people will always find a divide. Jem has a more realistic approach on why people despise each other even though they are all alike, but because it is a grimmer approach he doesn’t really stop Scout he just tells her that he used