Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

We will always live with Prejudice, because we may experience it first hand or do it without realizing .In the book To Kill A Mockingbird , Harper Lee portrays many themes, but a theme that is seen throughout most of the book is prejudice. In the city of Maycomb ,many civilians are treated differently based on the color of their skin, economic status ,beliefs ,identity and much more. In To Kill A Mockingbird , Harper Lee shows that prejudice takes over the minds of civilians in Maycomb and prevent them from seeing citizens for who they truly are. This is seen through the civilians in Maycomb towards Tom Robinson, Boo Radley and Atticus Finch.

Atticus Finch was a lawyer that defended Tom Robinson in the trial of Mayella Ewell. Defending an

“The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”(Pg.86) Atticus was explaining to Scout why it was important to defend a man like Tom Robinson, even though it could cause many problems not only for him, but for his children too, when Atticus took the case he knew it would affect him personally. For helping an African-American man, Atticus is seen as doing something wrong and for that people lose respect and harass Atticus, for his decision to help defend Tom Robinson. A man that harassed Atticus was Bob Ewell, “Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him”(pg.248). At this point of time , it had been a day into the trial . Bob Ewell displayed an act of immaturity is due to the

As Tom Robinson an African American man, The Ewell family goes against him in trial. Tom Robinson was accused of raping and beating Mayella Ewell on the night of November 21’st . With a Jury and Judge who are all white folks, Tom already knew there was no chance of him winning. While having a conversation with Jim, Atticus mention the injustice in the courts by saying “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins”. (Pg.251-252). Even after Atticus made strong arguments that prove Tom was innocent , he was still convicted as guilty by the jury . The jury wasn’t the only part of government being prejudice towards Tom but so was police officer Heck Tate . News went around town saying that Tom was being transferred to Maycomb’s county jail questioning if Heck was actually going to allow Tom to stay at the jail . After hearing what could happen to Heck Tate’s reputation for letting an African-American stay at his jail ,Atticus started to question Heck’s masculinity “you’re not scared of that crowd, are you?”” (Pg.165-166). After Atticus questioned him ,Heck gave in and let Tom stay one night at the jail. But Tom knew he wasn’t going to be under the protection of Heck Tate while he was there, but be under the protection of Atticus