In To Kill a Mockingbird by harper Lee, despite of him having a public trial, Tom Robinson, an innocent man was proven guilty, also his trial that was completely and utterly unfair, one-sided, and even discriminatory. This novel takes place in Maycomb, Alabama, a made up town. Robinson was working for the Ewell’s and one day Tom was invited into the house to fix a door. Tom Robinson was accused of raping and abusing a white woman, Mayella Ewell, when her father is the one who abused her. The jury had a lack of evidence to prove that Tom was guilty, and also ignored the evidence that proves his innocence.
Leading up to the Civil Rights Movement, the black community was in a constant battle against law enforcement treating them unfair compared to the white community. The Scottsboro Boys and Emmett Till’s cases were one of the many times that the legal system showed to be unfair to blacks. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, the law enforcement and community were very racist against blacks and believed all blacks were criminals. In the story, Atticus Finch, who is a lawyer gets put into a very difficult situation and decides to defend a black man, who went by the name of Tom Robinson.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson represents the mockingbird because he is killed for just trying to live his life. In the trial where a white woman, Mayella Ewell, accused a black man, Tom Robinson, of rape, Tom Robinson is found guilty, although it seems to be clear that he did not do it. He then gets sentenced to death and while he waits for the death penalty, put into jail.
Idhaant Bhosle Ms.Morgan EN 100 (H) 8 March 2023 The Role of Language, Power, and Societal Status in Confronting Racism and Inequality in To Kill a Mockingbird Race has always been a defining factor in American society, shaping the way people interact with each other and the world around them. Similarly, In Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee explores how race structures relationships in terms of power, language, and social status. To Kill A Mockingbird is set in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s, the novel is told from the eyes of Jean Louise Finch, Scout Finch, a young girl growing up in a world where society is divided by the prejudices of others. Scout is the daughter of Atticus Finch, a lawyer, defending an African
Tom Robinson is being punished for something he has not commit without any justifications to back up why he is receiving these biased actions against him. Bob Ewell, the actual criminal, gets freed; is roaming the streets with no fear, only, because his skin colour is lighter than Tom Robinson’s. Even though, there is evidence that Bob Ewell is the one who commits the crime. Additionally, Tom Robinson is shot 17 times, as Atticus explains, “‘They shot him,” said Atticus. “He was running.
In To Kill a Mockingbird , you unravel a generous amount of important life lessons. Throughout the book racism is shown as the climax; it takes a whole lot of courage to face it. Tom Robinson, an african-american, throughout the book is blamed and hated for his dark skin color, “Old Mr. Bob Ewell accused him of rapin’ his girl an’ had him arrested an’ put in jail” (Lee 164). Atticus, a lawyer, knows Tom Robinson is innocent. Atticus becomes
In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Tom Robinson faces situations where he is treated differently only because he is of a different race than mostly everyone else in the town of Maycomb. Tom Robinson is a black man who was accused for raping a white woman and was then put on trial for this accusation which had also lasted for a few hours. Tom was later found guilty, later on he was shot for trying to escape prison and then died. Tom Robinson faces racism when he is accused of a crime and when the people of Maycomb called his death “typical.” Mayella Ewell argues that Tom Robinson had raped her.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, the community displays that they despise black people and do not think they are equal to everyone else. The Tom Robinson trial is one of the times the community has shown this hatred. Atticus communicated incredible information to the jury to prove Tom's innocence, but all the jury could see was a black man up against a white one. In "To Kill a Mockingbird," Tom Robinson's tragic outcome is the result of the community's hatred for black people and flaws within the legal system. Body #1 Tom Robinson and other black people were not treated equally, which caused people to not listen to the facts that showed Tom was innocent.
In an act of desperation, Tom Robinson tried to escape prison. Climbing over a fence he got “seventeen bullet holes in him” (Lee 315). Tom Robinson was shot by prison guards not once, but seventeen times. The guards did not care if one shot would stop him from escaping the prison, but they wanted to kill him. Their action illustrates the extremely racist attitude towards African Americans at the time.
In To Kill a Mockingbord,Harper Lee Clearly shows how wide spread prejudice is, by using Atticus's standpoint ,Boo Radely, and mostly Tom Robinson's standpoint. Tom Robinson and Boo Radely are not once ever close to being given a chance. The whole reason Tom died because he was not given a chance, but because he had black skin, and also because he was prejudged by most of Maycomb. He was convicted guilty of murder, and ended upshot and killed by seventeen bullets because of his black
Lee uses a mockingbird to symbolise Robinson because his innocence is used against him, and his voice is silenced, just like a mockingbird when they are killed. Reflecting on these cases, it can be seen how deeply racism is ingrained in the judicial court, influencing the legal system to believe the word of a white man over a black man, which is precisely what Atticus said: “In our courts when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins.” Even in circumstances where there are no solid pieces of evidence, the white man’s accusations always prevail. Through both these unjust cases, Harper Lee exposes the racism ingrained in the legal system against African
One of the most controversial events from World War II (WWII) was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 6, 1945, America dropped the world’s first atomic bomb, code name “Little Boy, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion resulted in over 90,000 deaths. August 9th, 1945, a second bomb was dropped, code name “Fat Man”, on Nagasaki, instantly killing an estimated 70,000 people. On August 15, Japan surrendered unconditionally.
As my mom and I walk into Walmart, we overhear a white man scream “Move! I doesn’t like niggers” to a black man all because he tried to help the white man pick up something he dropped. Everyone in the store started to yell and curse at the white man and he left in a hurry. Shocking, right; however, incidents like this occur all around the world and who is to say that it is going to stop. The burden of racial profiling in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird relates to today’s reader; evidence is presented in Carol Ullmann’s and Lynn M. Zott’s, “Introduction to Racial Profiling: Opposing Viewpoints” and
Essay In the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, there are many important messages shown throughout the book. However the primary focus was set on racial prejudice that existed in the 1930s-1940’s in the fictional town of Maycomb County. The racism in the novel was very much a reality in 1930s-1940s America. A very good example of the racial prejudice that existed was in the courtroom during Tom Robinson’s trial, an innocent Negro man held against his will for a crime he did not commit.
As can be seen, Lee’s usage of Tom Robinson’s trial and the racial discrimination and prejudice seen throughout it helps reinforce the theme of social injustice throughout To Kill A Mockingbird. Another encounter that the
