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Racism Quotes In To Kill A Mockingbird

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During the early 1900s , racism was dominating the south. Jim Crow Laws gave blacks little rights and made it almost impossible to live a normal life. In court, judges and juries were filled with white men. Biases and racism over run court rulings. A black man winning a trial over a white man was unheard of. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates the difficulties of being a black man on trial. Tom Robinson, a black man, is on trial for a crime that he did not commit. Atticus Finch, Tom’s lawyer and the father of Jem and Scout, attempts to overcome the barriers of racism and keep an innocent man from being found guilty. In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the symbolic significance of the snowman and fire, the mad …show more content…

Jem and scout were walking home one day and passed by Mrs Dubose’s house. Mrs Dubose is an old lady who is very racist. Mrs Dubose talked bad about both their dad and their dead mother. Angry, Jem destroyed her white camellia flowers. Scout narrates, “He did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs Dubose owned…” (Lee 103). The white camellia bush symbolizes racism against black people. The white flowers growing out of the black dirt symbolizes white people being on top of blacks. This represents racism growing and spreading. Because Jem is good, he is trying to destroy that racism. As the book continues, Jem has to read to Mrs Dubose after school several days a week as a punishment for destroying her flowers. Mrs Dubose is very sick, and the night that she died she gave Atticus a box to give to Jem. Inside the box was a white camellia. Scout narrates, “Jem opened the box, Inside, surrounded by wads of damn cotton was a white, waxy, perfect camellia” (Lee 111). This shows how Mrs Dubose was trying to spread white supremacy and racism to Jem. The white camellias symbolize the growth and spread of racism throughout the town because of the trial.

In conclusion, in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the symbolic significance of the snowman and fire, the mad dog, and the white camellia to contribute to the effects of racism during the early 1900s. Harper Lee shows how difficult it was to live in the 1930s as a black person. With racism everywhere, it would be nearly impossible to live a normal life. With white supremacy and all white courthouses, winning a trial as a black an was impossible. Even to this day, biases and racism overrun court rulings and everyday

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Dubose. Throughout chapter 11, Jem and Scout talk about how much they hate Mrs. Dubose. They claimed she was the mean lady that would yell at them every time they walked by. “Don’t say that to me, you ugly girl! You say good afternoon, Mrs. Dubose!”

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Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, racism was still a huge part in our society and this is demonstrated through the Scottsboro Trial and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The first place this is shown, was after everybody heard about the supposed rape of the white girls. There were protests and tons of people showing hate towards the black men. Another example of this, was all the assumptions white people made, that the only logical explanation for the incident was that the black men raped the white girls. This assumption was without listening to the evidence or facts proving the man's innocence during the trial.

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In To Kill a Mockingbird prejudice in Maycomb is terrible. There are two major people in To Kill A Mockingbird that are prejudged severely. Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are the two main people who are prejudged. There is also one other man who prejudged, Atticus Finch. All three of these men are mockingbirds.

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“In the corner of the room was a brass bed, and in the bed was Mrs. Dubose. I wondered if Jems activities had put her there and for a moment I felt sorry for her.” The reason why Jem and Scout were at Mrs. Dubose’s house, was because Jem and Scout were walking by her house when Dubose started yelling at the kids saying that Atticus is not any better than the “niggers and trash he works for.” Jem lost his temper and takes Scouts baton he bought for her and snaps it in half. Jem destroys all of

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Lee’s usage of the azalea show readers Maudie 's compassionate and understanding personality, while the white camellias to were used to show Mrs. Dubose 's innocence and discriminatory

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It’s your job not to let her make you mad. ”(page 100). Jem was far more civilized than Mrs.Dubose. Their relationship was not a good one, especially after Jems anger caused him to “...cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs.Dubose owned. ”(page 103).

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Lee uses Miss Gates’s ironic views of Hitler and Tom’s trial to show how racial prejudice causes crimes against African Americans to be considered less than crimes committed against white people. A mockingbird is then used to symbolize Tom Robinson as an innocent person wrongly convicted of a crime because of his skin color. The misunderstood characterization of Arthur Radley shows how society will let prejudice guide their imaginated view on the lives of people they don't understand. All three characters provide examples of how a preconceived opinion of one person or a whole race can cause drastic misunderstandings and

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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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The poet, Lascelles Abercrombie once said, “There is only one thing which can master the perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man 's general destiny.”. He talked about how powerful of a tool symbolism is and how it is the only thing that can truly define a highly complex ‘destiny’ or series of events. Symbolism is something that is found throughout Harper Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee shows the reader that racism is a product of society,she portrays the matter through her symbolism of the mad dog, the birds and the bugs.

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Not only did the white camellia represent Mrs. Dubose’s feelings, but also Jem’s. Jem could now feel free of debt. He had read to her every day for 5 weeks (except on Sundays), and now, she has passed away. Jem no longer has to feel remorse and regret, but freedom that everything is right

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Dubose, the cranky and socially impaired lady next door to the Finches, for being rude to his family in revenge. “He did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves.”(137). Jem is the one suffering when Atticus finds out and forces him to make up for it by reading to Mrs. Dubose every afternoon after school and Saturdays for two hours. In this passage, Lee uses symbolism to show how Mrs. Dubose’s flowers (camellias) represent racism, and that you can't get rid of it that easily. Even though Jem cuts the top off of all her camellias, the issue is not yet resolved because the flowers are rooted deeper than that.

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In To Kill a Mockingbird, Mrs. Dubose has a bush of camellias in her yard. These flowers represent racism and prejudice towards black people in Macomb County. She refers to her flowers as “Snow-on-the-Mountain” that have white petals. The white petals show favoritism towards the white people in Maycomb County. In Chapter 11, Jem cuts down all the flowers with Scout’s baton.

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“I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man.” (Lee 208 par. 11). This quote shows that all jury’s pick whites as innocence before blacks even when whites have no evidence to prove innocence which then makes the trial an unfair trial since colored people were considered lower class than whites no black person has ever won a trial against a white person. Society influences everyone including the way blacks are being treated. It depends on the time period of which you could be affected by.

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