Examples Of Stereotypes In To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the greatest novels of its time period. Throughout the book, several stereotypes appear within many of the characters and events that happen. The story of To Kill a Mockingbird is primarily about a young girl named Scout whose father is a lawyer defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. She lives in a small Southern town that is shaken by the trial, because the man could not have physically committed the crime. However, he is convicted anyway, and Scout learns a lesson about life in the South in the Great Depression. With the ongoing event of the Great Depression, several occurrences of stereotyping affects many within the town; however, it is well known that stereotyping still occurs

Being said, stereotyping, even though displayed in the early 1900s, still occur in today’s era through American stereotypes, religious stereotypes, and even gender roles.

As Stereotypes become more apparent in today’s era, Stereotypes also appear in To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee describes the harsh life of one man named Tom Robinson whom is greatly affected by several racial stereotypes within the story. After carefully defending Tom Robinson throughout the case of his own, Atticus Finch describes and delivers the wrongness of the color of the defendant’s skin to the Jury in the final statement before the commencement of a verdict. “In the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption- the evil assumption- that all Negroes lie…basically immoral beings…Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber” (204). This statement reveals that with the justification of Atticus’s ending statement, he still has to bring up the part that the colored stereotype

These are just some of the several examples of how stereotyping is categorized for men and women in today’s society. This type of generalization of each gender has been around for centuries and continues to be used. One source argues that “Conscious and unconscious motives of having the family race continue… Guns and cars are bought for him, preferably blue and never pink! While growing up, if he cries he will be told ‘don’t cry like a girl!’...learns to suppress his emotions as he thinks it is ‘girlish’ to express them.” (Srichand, "TalkItOver RSS"). Srichand disputes that gender roles are quickly assumed at the moment of birth. As soon as the gender is announced expectations and generalizations come in to where the stereotyping takes place. Although, this doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing to stereotype for us as humans. It is quite normal based on many sources that stereotyping is normal and part of brain to organize things. “The use of stereotypes is a major way in which we simplify our social world; since they reduce the amount of processing…we have to do when we meet a new person” (McLeod, 2008). This quote gives great insight to what makes stereotyping in new situations more normal. Stereotyping in some cases is a logical response to what us as humans make us