ipl-logo

Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

763 Words4 Pages

There are many different types of prejudice, such as racial prejudice, prejudice against where people come from and age prejudice. People may judge another person based on their looks, the way they dress or the way they talk. Prejudice is based on ignorance. This is shown in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee when the following characters are judged: Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, and Boo Radley. Firstly, the jury convicts the character, Tom Robinson, of a crime he did not commit. They did this even when the jury is shown that he is innocent. This is proven when Atticus shows the audience that Tom is crippled in the left arm. Mayella is beaten on the right side of her face, so this means that only a left-handed man could have …show more content…

However, throughout the book Boo can be described as a good person, as he puts a blanket over Scout and Jem to keep them warm during the winter when they were watching Miss Maudie’s house burn down. Not only this, Boo Radley keeps the two children safe when Bob Ewell attacks Jem and Scout, he is also the person giving Jem and Scout the gifts that they find in the tree’s knot-hole. Jem, Scout, and Dill have not been able to see, hear or know anything about him other than the rumours they have heard. The kids think that by knowing only rumours and not the truth, they are able to play a game about Boo and his family. Most of the Maycomb community judges Boo off of rumours that are spread throughout the county, even Jem and Scout, while very few people, such as Atticus, know the truth. That Boo is not what he seems. In the beginning of the book, Scout is scared of Boo because she did not know him or what he looked like. However, when she finally meets Boo she states “Atticus, he was real nice…” (376) in this case, Scout is referring to Boo. Boo does many good things throughout the book and is judged based on rumours that have spread throughout the Maycomb community over the years. Finally, without knowing how he looks, or anything about him, people of Maycomb continue to judge

Show More
Related
435 Words | 2 Pages

Everybody in Maycomb thought that Boo and his family were strange and scary. Nobody knew who they were because nobody talked to them or nobody invited them into their house. When Boo Radley saves Jem her life, Scout soon realises that Boo Radley is just a folk like her and there was no need to be afraid of him. Like Atticus tells

Read More
746 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
704 Words | 3 Pages

Primary Evidence: Jem tells Scout that he thinks that Boo stays in his house because Boo knows that if he was to be seen in public he would be judged by Maycomb citizens (Lee 227). 2. Interpretation: Like a mockingbird, Boo is misjudged and people are scared that he will harm them, but he is actually innocent and loving. B. Claim: Boo radley is a loving giving man who likes to bring joy to

Read More
1563 Words | 7 Pages

These gifts from him show his kindness to for the children, how he wants to be friends with them, and how he finds them as intelligent. Boo shows his kindness and protection for the kids by folding and sewing Jem's pants for him. Arthur also must have asked his brother Nathan to not attack Jem when he comes back for his pants. Another event where Boo shows his kindness for the Finches was when Maycomb had snow for the first time, and Ms. Maudie’s house was in flames. While standing in front of the Radley’s place Scout was

Read More
613 Words | 3 Pages

Without ever even meeting Boo, these rumors are enough tomake Scout and Jem believe he is a sort of monster, as opposed to a real human being. Whenever the children pass by his house on their way home from school, they sprint, because they have been ‘brainwashed’ into believing this innocent man is dangerous. What the kids are unaware of until later on in the story, is that many of these rumors are nonsense. Although they don’t realize it at the time, Boo commits many secret acts of kindness.

Read More
697 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the novel, Scout asks many people who Boo Radley is. Many have responded with horrible stories and negative words towards him. But as she and her older brother, Jem, find little trinkets in a knot hole, it shows how all he is, is a man who was imprisoned by the fear of his own father, just wanting a friend. Many look at Boo Radley as a worse person than Mr. Ewell, a man who was willing to kill two children just to get even. If it wasn’t for Boo, Jem and Scout would have died by the hands of Mr. Ewell.

Read More
1464 Words | 6 Pages

house and forced to stand outside in the cold against the Radley's fence. As the two are caught up in all the chaos doing on Boo wraps Scout in a blanket without saying a word and disappears once again not being noticed or acknowledged for the help he does, even if it was so small. In this small act of kindness we see how Harper Lee portrays the mockingbird through Boo, having him help in anyway. This little part of the story shows how Boo feels compelled to help the

Read More
602 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, prejudice is portrayed in many ways. Three characters that experience prejudice is Boo Radley, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson. Boo Radley is not treated like he fits into the town, Atticus Finch is being judged because he is presenting a black person in court, and Tom Robinson experiences prejudice because he is black. The people in Maycomb think Boo Radley is different, so they treat him like he does not belong in the town. The citizens in Maycomb think that Boo’s actions are not normal.

Read More
1279 Words | 6 Pages

In the beginning of the book, the kids think Boo is a monster. The children think his hands are stained with blood because of the animals he eats and that he drools when he walks, but Boo becomes “Scout’s most personal lesson in judging others based upon surface appearance” (Felty 298). This shows how she thinks all these things about him because of how he looks but as she is exposed to real life monsters she learns that she cannot make assumptions because of how someone looks. The people of Maycomb say “people’s chickens and household pets were found mutilated” though it was later found boo was not the culprit, “people still looked to the Radley place, unwilling to discard their initial suspicions” (Lee 10). She sees how he isn’t the “‘malevolent phantom’ who dominated the children's imaginations,” but a “misunderstood man who saves Scout’s and Jem’s lives” (Felty 298).

Read More
1146 Words | 5 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee tells a story of racial prejudice during the Depression and how it is combated. The main development in the novel is that a Atticus, the father of Scout and Jem, has been appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a young white woman named Mayella. Many people in the town of Maycomb, particularly people involved with the case of Tom, have a negative attitude towards African Americans. Prejudice was a terrible issue in the South during the Depression, but Atticus Finch shows that racial injustice can be combated in two main ways, each having different levels of effectiveness.

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

During almost all of the story Boo is made out to be a creature-like person who eats squirrels and will take children at night. Jem, Scout and Dill are all equally terrified yet intrigued by the idea of meeting Boo. This is until the children get older, they start to realize how Maycomb is a twisted county, they understand that the reason why Boo never leaves his home is because he doesn’t want to. He knows how dirty the society is, he never wants to take part in it. Boo proves himself brave in the last few chapters of the novel.

Read More
1109 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, prejudice is shown as an important part of Maycomb’s society. Groups in Maycomb are based on race, class, and gender. Racial prejudice is shown throughout the novel towards the African American society. Early in the novel Scout and Jem go with their housekeeper, Calpurnia to the African American church.

Read More
1157 Words | 5 Pages

How did prejudice happen in this world that God made? Prejudice is an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. In this world, there are a lot of prejudice. Prejudice doesn´t happen suddenly but it happens from a root. Everything happens from a root and that causes to be or do something.

Read More
1144 Words | 5 Pages

Boo Radley never harmed anyone, but was victimized by the social prejudice of the Maycomb community. Although not established until the end of the novel, Boo Radley is set up to be the last discovered symbolic character for the image of the mockingbird. Harper Lee has done this to illustrate all points of injustice in the 1930s societal town of Maycomb, where rumours and old tales define Boo's life story rather than his authentically generous heart and personality. During the concluding chapter of the novel, Scout comes to the realization that blaming Boo for Bob Ewell's death would be "sort of like shootin' a mockingbird." Boo does many kind-hearted things in the novel such as leaving gifts in the knot-hole for Scout and Jem, repairing Jem's pants, putting the blanket on Scout discretely in order to keep her warm, and even saving them from the evil Bob Ewell.

Read More
712 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, she discovers important issues like prejudice. Techniques such as characterization, imagery and symbolism are used throughout. Lee has created a few main characters. The novel is seen through the eyes of a protagonist, Scout Finch, with main characters Atticus Finch and Bob Ewell. It is set in a rural town of Maycomb County in the 1930s where effects of prejudice are evident.

Read More

More about Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Related Topics

Open Document