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How Does Lee Present The Theme Of Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

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In today’s society many men, women and children have been a victim or guilty of being prejudice towards to others because of their differences between them. Prejudiced is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper, Lee prejudice is one of the main themes. Lee addresses the theme trough the characters of the novel and delivering a message to the reader suggests prejudiced is present in the world, therefore, we must take action to resolve it due to the multiple ways it can damage an individual. Lee depicts the theme of prejudice trough the characters of Atticus, Scout, Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, Bob Ewell, and Mrs.Dubose. Each character gives a unique insight towards …show more content…

Harper Lee uses Boo Radley’s character to show how people fear and do not accept who is different. Boo Radley is a victim of prejudice due to being an anomaly. The people of Maycomb County are critical and judgemental towards Boo. The neighbourhood depicts Boo as a “malevolent phantom” because he has not been outside. Seeing that, the townspeople start making rumours about Boo Radley a description of him according to Jem, “ Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch that’s why his hand were blood stained if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.”(13) This quote reveals how gossip can affect an individual Jem who has not seen Boo Radley is creating false images of him due to the false information that surrounds him created by the adults. The adults show prejudice toward Boo by telling absurd stories regarding him according to Miss Stephanie Boo stabbed Mr Radley on the leg with a pair of scissors and peeks into windows at night. Furthermore, the town blames him for any misdeed that occurs, “When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crime committed in Maycomb were his work.”(9) and “ Once the town was terrorized by a series of morbid nocturnal events: people's chicken and household pets were found mutilated; although the culprit was Crazy Addie, people still looked at the Radley place” (9). Both quotes demonstrate how much discrimination Boo suffers from the townspeople automatically declares Boo as the cause for any misfortune events that occur. Later in the novel, Jem realises Boo chooses to stay inside because people are going to discriminate him due to being different, “I think

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Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a Novel about a little town called Maycomb Alabama. This story is about a pair of siblings, Scout the younger sister and Jem the big brother. Boo what people call Arthur Radly, is a local legend who is described as a total of different things. Many people want to be as far away from him as possible but since no one has ever seen him leave the house that caused a lot of different types of gossip that were passed around town about who he is, and what he has done. Boo is portrayed to be some sort of “being” that the kids have never seen before.

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As Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities” (Lee 12). When Scout heard this rumor she believed it, she is a young and at first was a product of the usual disease. Boo Radley is unknown to Miss Stephanie, and when people do not know something that is how rumors are formed. Boo Radley has stayed inside for fifteen years, no one can know the real truth. It was “Maycomb’s usual

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In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Witch Hunt by Marc Aronson, prejudice is rampant. It has many forms, it can be easily seen, but yet it is rarely noticed. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus hopes that he “can get Jem and Scout through [the trial] without bitterness, and without catching Maycomb’s usual disease [racial prejudice],” similar to the Salem Witch Trials and that “Tituba’s appearance and heritage probably were not what influenced the girls [to accuse people of witchcraft and act strangely], the fact that she was Indian was enough.” Atticus explains that during the trial of Tom Robinson, racial prejudice is going to become very apparent to Jem and Scout. He doesn't want his children to go down a path of biased views of people

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In Maycomb, rumors that are spread compare him to a creature, a stalker, and a criminal of the town, saying "went out at night when the moon was out, peeped in windows, and committed small crimes throughout Maycomb", Miss Stephanie Crawford most likely being the one to spread them. Many of the rumors like these come from the fact that the town does not see much of him ever, he is much like a recluse, which the town fails to understand. Ms. Crawford is also mostly responsible for this rumor in particular, as she claimed to have seen Boo Radley in her window, some night, which is probably wasn't true to begin with. To continue, many of the prejudices in the novel, like this one, come from a lack of understanding and the willingness of the town to their minds up about who Boo is when they truly have no clue. Along with the fact that these rumors spread from a lack of knowledge, the children of the town pick up on the comments and rumors made about Boo.

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“Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained–if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off” (Lee 16). This is who Scout Finch thinks her neighbor Boo Radley is and what he does. “Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo…” (Lee 16). Scout Finch has no firsthand knowledge of

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Rumors swept through the town, ruining a man’s reputation and giving him no reason to step outside of his own home. In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Arthur “Boo” Radley is the most complex of Maycomb’s residents. Many say Boo is a killer that should not be trusted near children. However, Scout thinks otherwise as she tries to understand Boo herself. She learns more than she figured, as Boo teaches her numerous lessons without even meeting her.

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Throughout the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” written by Harper Lee, the readers can see how Scout changes her view about Boo Radley. Because of their nosiness, Jem, Scout, and Dill try to drag Boo out his house and to the outside world. Their innocent actions combined with Boo’s actions changed the image of Boo, in their minds, from “a malevolent phantom” (10), a person who kills cats and eats squirrels to a neighbor they can trust, who saves them from Bob Ewell. Scout says at the end, “Boo was our neighbor” (373). The readers can see a great change in their relationship.

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(20) Jem’s exaggerated description demonstrates the community’s intense prejudice towards Boo Radley. The people are able to alienate a member based off of speculations. Scout, an innocent member of Maycomb, has grown up with the idea that Boo acts and looks like

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Harper Lee is a very talented author who happens to use her story, To Kill a Mockingbird, to teach and inform readers about the past and the differentiation between peoples’ perspectives of the old way of life. The existence of the theme of prejudice is the foundation for the novel, and without it, readers would have a more challenging time understanding and connecting with the story. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, illustrates the theme of prejudice through the presence of gender prejudice and racial prejudice. To begin, the novel demonstrates instances of gender prejudice. Gender prejudice is simply the actions or thoughts based on gender-based perception of women and men’s expected roles and behaviors in society.

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Such as, “Boo bit off his mothers’ fingers one night when he couldn’t find any cats or squirrels to eat,” (Chapter 4) Or the rumour of him eating cats “he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch,” (Chapter 1) This led people to believe that Boo Radley was indeed a “monster” and a malevolent person. Harper Lee aims for readers to understand that through the language devices, social prejudice is being shown. Language devices such as the metaphor used to describe Mr Radley, “he was a thin, leathery man with coloured eyes, so colourless, they did not reflect light,” (Chapter 1) This leads the reader to believe that the Radley place is a dark, confined and scary place that not even an animal would dare to go too.

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262 Words | 2 Pages

In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows prejudice in Maycomb through characters. Prejudice is the judgement of a person based on what they look like such as their gender, age and skin color without knowing them. There are different types of prejudice that are shown in this novel. An example of prejudice in Maycomb is when Mrs. Maudie cannot be on a jury just because she is a woman, "Miss Maudie can 't be on a jury because she 's a woman (221)."

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1437 Words | 6 Pages

Cynthia Kwan ENG 2D7 Ms. Whittaker November 27, 2015 (TITLE) Prejudice is something that can blind one’s perspective and cause people to misconceive based on their ignorance. People make assumptions on others by the way they look, the cars they drive or the homes that they live in even before they actually speak to them. These assumptions can cloud their judgement. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, prejudice is a central conflict and characters are constantly exposed to it.

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He is accountable for creating many themes as well affecting the actions and development of other characters. Furthermore, he plays a major role in the maturation of Jem and Scout. Jem, Scout, and Dill are fascinated by the rumors of Boo Radley around them. People in Maycomb perceive Boo as someone who, “dined on raw squirrels and cats” and “the teeth he had were yellow and rotten”(16). This quote shows the people’s impression of Boo and how they affect the childrens in the book.

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1244 Words | 5 Pages

In Maycomb, people fear what they do not know and what is unusual to them, hence shaping the rumours of Boo Radley to cope with the unknown. Considering he is unseen from the public eye, and has a messy past, many begin to fantasize what is happening with him currently by constructing stories. Anyone who claims that they know information on Boo, have no proof or firsthand experience to support it as the truth. Scout knows that Jem’s information source on Boo Radley is from another individual and their fantasies, “So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighbourhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing.”

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Though rumor has it that they Mr. and Mrs. Radley hide Boo from the town since now the Radley place consisted of , “rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda;oak trees kept the sun away” (8). This asserts that everyone thought he was a bad guy because of his prison time. In addition, most of the children in Maycomb including Scout and Jem have assume for a fact that ,“ inside the house lived a malevolent phantom called Boo Radley”(8). This shows how rumors lie about his story since in the end he was actually just a nice guy as he saved Scout and Jem from Ewell's assault. This proves his symbol of goodness in him because of willingly came out of the house that he stayed in for 15 years.

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