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Racial Issues In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Created in 1960, Harper Lee’s book, “To kill a mockingbird” extends far beyond just being a fictional book about a town set in a more racially biased point in history, and actually shows what prejudice and instances of racism were like in famous cases in history and how some of the lessons taught in the book still can be found in modern times. Lee shows the theme of how difficult it is to solve racial issues, if not everyone is willing to change or even help.
In the novel the theme is shown majorly in three different instances, one being the Tom Robinson trial. Before, during and after the trial, almost everyone in Maycomb already knew that the trial would have a massively unfair and biased outcome, and that Tom would not have a chance at …show more content…

Even when it’s not directly towards him, he is often described as someone who has to do the jobs people do not want, like in chapter 22 when Miss Maudie says, “I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.”(pg 288). Some citizens of Maycomb even felt that he had turned on them for choosing to defend a black person and would harass him. Even the kids at school would shame Scott and Jem who weren’t even involved in the case at all for having their father defend …show more content…

Taking place in Money, Mississippi 1995, an incident occurred when a white woman claimed that the 14- year old Emmett Till said something vulgar to her at a grocery store which would then lead to his gruesome death of being kidnapped, beaten, shot then thrown in the Tallahatchie River. After being tried and found not guilty, the two murderers would go on to admit that they were the ones who committed the crime and not face any repercussions. This is also similar to Tom Robinson’s trial in to kill a mockingbird because when it is shown that Tom was physically incapable to commit the crime, he was still unfairly charged and found guilty by the

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679 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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574 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the Maycomb court system is totally biased in a discriminatory way. The case of Tom Robinson, if it had not been in this court with its racist jurors, would certainly have not ended the way it did. It only ended the way it did because of peer-pressure, a scared victim being manipulated and believed, and an honest man not. Through her testimony, Mayella Ewell constantly lied.

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916 Words | 4 Pages

The jaw of every human in Maycomb County dropped as Judge Taylor said “guilty… guilty… guilty… guilty...” (240). It is apparent that Tom Robinson is innocent; however, society’s racist norms impacted the verdict far more than the facts. Actually, during the setting of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, it was commonplace during the 1930’s in Alabama to always take the word of a white man over that of a black man. Although Atticus proves beyond a doubt that Tom Robinson did not rape Mayella Ewell, the jury convicts him despite the overwhelming evidence pointing at Bob Ewell as the perpetrator.

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1367 Words | 6 Pages

Even when the evidence overwhelmingly supports Tom Robinson’s innocence, the jury’s bias towards blacks convicts Tom as guilty and is the reason for his eventual death. However, Atticus’s strong efforts leads to a lengthy discussion about the verdict of Tom’s case, which creates hope for a turning point in Maycomb, where whites and blacks are treated equal, because no other trial involving a black person has taken this length of time. In summary, all the occurrences of injustice in To Kill a Mockingbird such as the trial of Tom Robinson are created by a group of people with the same immoral beliefs but can be fixed with strong determination

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885 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the story is set in the 1900’s, Maycomb, Alabama. During this time there was racism in the south and segregation which separated the whites and blacks from everything. There was also the Great Depression, the whole country was poor and people living in the country had to trade and do other jobs for people to either pay them off or to buy something from them. The trial in this book is about Mayella and Bob Ewell, two white people, claiming and arguing that Tom Robinson, a black person, raped Mayella Ewell. This trial is really important because at that time in the south, white people took advantage of black people and their kindness and thought they would take that or shut up just because they were black.

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1123 Words | 5 Pages

The ever present distaste from whites in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, shows the issues that blacks had to deal with constantly. Lee was able to portray this hatred by putting and important character, Tom Robinson a black man, on an unjust trial for the alleged rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell. This classic story reveals the awful conditions and intense racism during this time in the southern Unites States. Some of the many African Americans affected by southern white racists in court or otherwise include the Scottsboro

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825 Words | 4 Pages

Before Tom Robinson’s trial, the town had a “gala”(182) and the town was “covered with picnic parties”(182). This use of diction creates a celebratory mood, suggesting that the town did not care about Tom’s trial. Lee creates the idea that the people of Maycomb do not care about Tom, or any African Americans for that matter. While most of the town of Maycomb is celebrating, “in a far corner of the square, the Negroes sat quietly in the sun” (182), suggesting they are outcasts. This dissimilarity between the townspeople is used to assist the reader in understanding the depth of the principal theme of racial prejudice.

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784 Words | 4 Pages

In the 1930s, in Maycomb, Alabama, Tom Robinson strived for equality and his life during the plot of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. An innocent young black man, Tom Robinson, was convicted of raping poor Mayella Ewell. Two people testified against Tom and although Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, had a very well thought out plan, their evidence did not match with the case. When Tom was on the stand, he answered every question honestly.

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877 Words | 4 Pages

For African-American men and women, being innocent is often not an option. This is exactly the situation Tom Robinson is put into in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, set in the 1930s in Maycomb, Alabama. This story is about an African American man named Tom Robinson who is being accused of raping a white female named Mayella Ewell. Mayella is a member of one of the trashiest families in Maycomb but still has higher social standing than Tom. This shows that racial injustice during this time was extreme.

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857 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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582 Words | 3 Pages

Bob Ewell. Most of everybody is racist in To Kill a Mockingbird but the Ewells are the “big hitters” of racism in Maycomb. “Why I run for Tate as quick as I could I knowd who it was all right lived down yonder in that nigger nest passed the house everyday. Jedge i’ve asked this county for fifteen years to clean out that nest down yonder they’re dangerous to live around sides devaluin my property.” Harper Lee to kill a Mockingbird Quite literally the only reason Bob Ewell said that is because of the simple fact that Tom is black and doesn’t want to deal with the black

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754 Words | 4 Pages

Race has always been a part of history, from slavery to MLK, to Barack Obama. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee defines race in the south during the 1930’s. Jean “Scout” Finch, is the narrator of the story. Her brother Jeremy “Jem” and her dad, Atticus, are both main characters. Calpurnia is their house cook and helper, she is also black.

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1165 Words | 5 Pages

Trinh 1 Frank Trinh Ms. Gist English IV ¬ 3rd Period 5 March 2018 Pride and Ambition: What a Mistake! Ambition is among the most creative and the strongest driven forces in the state of human psychology, and the reason how or why things get done. It is also one of the most dangerous drive ¬¬ the drive to get the last slice of pizza, or the entire box to yourself. If one has no pride, no ambition, no sense of self-importance, he/ she is relatively immune to it.

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921 Words | 4 Pages

What if the world was still the same as it was back during the great depression. What if this was the truth. In To Kill a Mockingbird readers can see how prejudice affected people of color back then, and how it’s not so different from today. In the novel readers will find unfairness in court, hate crimes, and segregation. Today readers can still find these same issues, but in different forms.

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858 Words | 4 Pages

One of the main themes of the novel is Racism. During the time of depression, racism and poverty were a common issue. People with a dark skin tone, i.e the African- Americans were seen as derogatory and treated like dirt. Harper Lee depicts it in a very realistic way.

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