To kill a mockingbird was a political statement, yet it was not meant for the public to so widely see. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the award winning novel by Harper Lee, many important topics are touched upon with themes such as family and justice, however, the most prevalent theme is racism and Harper Lee manages to touch upon it many times. Race in Maycomb County helps to determine social class and power, it also creates an unspoken set of rules regarding code of conduct and how many people interact in their relationships, both interracial and not. In Maycomb County race is a major determining factor in a person’s positioning in the social hierarchy.
An innocent black man, a selfless lawyer, and a misunderstood recluse all face the overwhelming prejudice and stereotypes of Maycomb County, which affects the way in which they live. Each man plays a pivotal role in the society of Maycomb County, and although they each live divergent lifestyles, they are all mockingbirds in their own unique way. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee compares Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley to mockingbirds to show that innocent men are victims of society’s prejudice.
In the story of To Kill a Mockingbird, there 's a town called Maycomb. This town is divided by many factors. Race was a big dividend but it wasn 't the only factor of division there was social status, power, and gender. These factors are what conduct the way relationships and personalities formed.
However, when prejudice stops communities showing kindness to one another, that’s when hierarchy becomes discrimination. As with any small town, hierarchy is inevitable. In Maycomb, the list contains the white, then black population, and finally, mixed folks. First, higher up families such as the Finches, then Mrs. Dubose, who is lower down because of her scathing manners, then the Cunningham’s, who are polite, but poor, after, the Ewells who are filthy and poor. For the black community, Calpurnia, who is polite and respectable.
Luca Darpino English 9 Mr. Woythaler 28 April 2023 The Theme of Racism and Segregation is Expressed in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird Many years ago America was very different from what we see now, not everyone was treated equally. People were beaten, assaulted, physically and mentally abused for what they looked like. All kinds of good, innocent people are losing their lives for no major reason other than the color of their skin.
In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most significant themes is race and social class cause inequalities. For example, the all-white jury decided an innocent black man’s verdict, when Judge Taylor polled the group, the vote was unanimous “guilty… guilty… guilty… guilty…” (Lee 112). The white men were all considered of higher class than Tom and going into the trial they all already knew the outcome. Furthermore, Bob knew that he could use Tom to cover up his mistakes and once he got his daughter to go along, “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed” (Lee 128).
There were four classes. The upper most class consisted of whites who were considered “rich” after years of depression. Atticus, Judge Taylor, Miss Maudie Atkinson, and Miss Stephanie Crawford all fit into this class. The second class of Maycomb County included white workers as well as farmers who had trouble making ends meet. The characters who represented this class were the Cunninghams, Dolphus Raymond, and the Radley
TKAM ESSAY To KILL A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Written in 1960 based in Monroe Alabama. TKAM was founded in Maycomb Alabama in the 1930s. The character Atticus Finch was based on Lee’s real father a liberal Alabama lawyer. Who frequently defended black men.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, there are many chapters that involve racism, poverty, and or violence. This book takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. The Finches, Jem, Scout, and Atticus which are the rich white people, the Cunninghams, the poor humble people, the Ewells, the dirt poor white trash people, and the colored folks all are involved in either racism, poverty, and or violence. Many examples of poverty are stated in To Kill A Mockingbird. An example of poverty is the Ewells because the Ewells have nearly nothing.
How times have changed America as a society has grown enormously since the 1930s. Civil rights have made it possible for equality to exist for all races and genders. This is vastly different from what the small town of Maycomb, Alabama displays in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The people and attitudes of Maycomb showcase examples of racism, classism, and gender inequality. This book depicts societal standards for America in the South before freedom movements for African Americans in the 1950s and for Women in the 1970s.
In conjunction with this time of calamity, Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird instills an apparent disparity of economic classes that is distributed amongst its characters throughout the Alabama town of Maycomb. This notion of economic disparity is manifested
This shows how social classes separate people even if they are from the same place. Poor people were with poor, and and middle classes people or rich people with their groups. That was not discrimination about race, it was about social classes. The highest class in Maycomb, Alabama consisted of those who were white, came from good family lines and worked for a living. This class was treated with mostly respect, but they were expected to maintain their integrity of white peoples and their own families.
Moral pluralism is also known as ethical pluralism or value pluralism. Moral pluralism is the idea that there are several values which may be equally correct and fundamental, and yet in conflict with each other. It also postulates that such incompatible values may be incommensurable, in the sense that there is no objective ordering of them in terms of importance. In this essay, I will argue that Moral Pluralism is incorrect because of the objection that it is not consistent with liberalism. I will first discuss some reasons why Moral Pluralism might be an appealing theory.
Racism, family background, and wealth are the three main forms of social inequality that appear multiple times in To Kill a Mockingbird. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee proves that the Negroes are not respected at all simply because of their skin color. They are so disrespected and looked down on to the point they have their own little community out of the town away from the white people. Although, the colored are racists towards the white people in Maycomb.
In the novel, ‘To kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates the small, imaginary town, the Maycomb County, as a place where racism and social inequality happens in the background of 1930s America. Not only the segregation between whites and blacks, but also the poor lived in a harsh state of living. As Scout, the young narrator, tells the story, Lee introduces and highlights the effects of racism and social inequality on the citizens of Maycomb County by using various characters such as Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Mayella Ewell. Firstly, Harper Lee portrays Boo Radley as a victim of social inequality through adjectives and metaphor in the phrase, “There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten;” ‘Long jagged scar that ran across his face’ tells us that Boo Radley has stereotype about his appearance, which forces to imagine Boo as a scary and threatening person. The phrase, ‘yellow and rotten’ make the readers think as if Boo Radley is poor and low in a social hierarchy, as he cannot afford to brush his teeth.
