How Does Harper Lee Use Racial Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

Racial prejudice and social stratification is an ongoing issue, which is often reinforced by many texts. These ideologies have again been represented throughout Harper Lee's entertaining and descriptive novel, To Kill a Mockingbird which published during the 60's. She addresses these factors by challenging the social expectations of the 1930's, in Alabama. Lee exposes these uprisings through the narrator's eyes, Jean Louise Finch (Scout), who is learning and rebelling against the unjust 1930's perspectives. Harper Lee also utilises Atticus as the protagonist in order to defend the ‘criminal', Tom Robinson, who was charged with the rape of a white American, Mayella Ewell and thus challenges social ideologies and ethics. Due to Atticus's beliefs

The Finch’s are among the middle class due to the fact that Atticus is a lawyer and most importantly, he's white. Whilst many or all white men at the time used their authority against the coloured, Atticus believed that his supremacy should depict and follow his morals. As a result, he assists Tom Robinson, an African-American male who was wrongly convicted for the rape of a Caucasian girl. To support this, Atticus quotes, "There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads – they couldn't make be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a black man's word against a white man's, the white man always wins…the one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any colour of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box" (Lee, 1960, p.240). This highlights the 1930's racially biased justice system that would essentially convict the coloured guilty regardless of obvious evidence and argument. Still, as a man with superiority, Atticus attempts to do the right thing and clear Robinson's name from crime. From the text, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird', it’s strongly identifiable that Atticus is depicted as a righteous man, who often challenges the perception of society, which signified his rightful rebellion towards equality despite its success. Thus, this sanctions the idea that the 1930's was ruled depending on racial prejudice and stereotypical