Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

In contrast to modern culture, small-town America in the Great Depression lived a very conspicuous lifestyle. People were still overcome by prejudice, particularly racism and sexism, and practiced this through segregation and gender roles. Those with darker flesh did not have as many opportunities as whites; they spent their lives often serving as maids and laborers. Women were expected to fulfill their gender role and cater to the needs of the “man of the household”. Harper Lee illustrates such a world through the innocent eyes of a child who has not been corrupted by prejudice in her classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel’s unique title refers to the prejudice and damage imposed upon pure-hearted, innocent individuals. The ever-insightful

Before the Tim Johnson scene, Scout describes the unsettling eeriness of the street; “Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street. The trees were still, the mockingbirds were silent, the carpenters at Miss Maudie’s house had vanished” (125). This recurs at the very climax of the trial, as the atmosphere intensifies in await of the final verdict. “The feeling grew until the atmosphere in the courtroom was exactly the same as a cold February morning, when the mockingbirds were still, and the carpenters had stopped hammering on Miss Maudie’s new house, and every wood door in the neighborhood was shut as tight as the doors of the Radley Place. A deserted, waiting, empty street, and the courtroom was packed with people” (281). This absence of mockingbirds illustrates an uncanny corruption of prejudice, as the young and naive narrator sees the world for how it truly