In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, she implements the idea that Lula is intolerant of white people. Through the use of characterization, Lee attempts to assert that because of past experiences with white people, Lula can not be open minded enough to accept them in fear of what happened to her previously. Characterization is the depiction of a character in thoughts, words, and actions.
Lulas bigotry makes Scout and Jem extremely uncomfortable. As Scout, Jem, and Calpurnia arrive at the all colored church, they are greeted with love and respect from everyone except Lula. Scout and Jem notice this as she starts to approach them and asks Calpurnia, “I wants to know why you bringin’ white chillun to negro church” (Lee 157-159). Basically, Lula
…show more content…
To put it another way, Lula is very narrow-minded and is not willing to open her eyes to the fact that things are slowly changing in Maycomb. Just because of her previous experience with white people, she does not want to give anyone a chance, and that involves white children coming to a place where she thought she was safe from them not being there. She was so used to being treated unfairly, that now she treats white people who are tolerant of colored people very cruelly. As time goes by, Lula is still very upset as to why white people are in her area of worship. She starts to get aggressive and tells Calpurnia that she has “no business bringin’ white chillun here– they got their church, we got our’n” (Lee 157-159). In other words, Lula extremely dislikes the fact that Calpurnia is bringing white people to a black church when they already have their own place of worship. In making this comment, Lula displays her intolerance as she does not see behind the fact that not all white people are bad, just like how not all colored people are. She can not see past what happened to her and continues to be stubborn. Instead of fighting hate with love, she fights hate