Social Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Social Injustice is caused by the mistreatment from certain characters to others. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, many characters are being affected by social injustice due to class, race, and gender. Because the story is set in the 1930’s, mistreatment of certain people is a lot more serious than it is nowadays. Though classism, racism, and sexism still occur today, people are not affected by it as much. In the story, Harper Lee portrays these problems in three main characters; Scout Finch, Tom Robinson, and the Ewells/Cunninghams. These three characters suffer from different problems, but are all affected in a similar way. A character in the story that realises the isolation of certain groups in the story is Jem. “There’s four kinds

In the story, Scout proves to us that she does not want to be treated like a girl. Though, this does not mean that she wants to be a boy. In the middle of the book, Aunt Alexandra begins to stay at the Finch household. This has an affect on Scout because she is starting to be taught to be like a young women. Scout shows us that she doesn’t like the idea of this and continues to refuse to become more feminine. Earlier in the book, even her brother, Jem, thinks that she is becoming more of a girl and wants to leave her behind when he is doing anything that she doesn’t like. "Scout, I 'm tellin ' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home—I declare to the Lord you 're gettin ' more like a girl every day!" (Lee 69). This quote shows how Scout is suffering from social injustice because she is being criticized for being who she really is. This proves that characters in the book suffer from social injustice because some think that there is something wrong in acting feminine, even as a girl. There are more times in the story that Jem treats Scout like this and she is getting mistreated by him. When Aunt Alexandra first comes to stay at the Finch’s house, Atticus tells Scout that she is there to show her some manners and teach her how to act how a young women should. An example that shows that Scout didn’t like the idea of this was when she wore the dress on the

Tom Robinson is the last character that suffers from social injustice. He suffers from one that is probably most common today; racism. Being an African American at this time makes you very vulnerable to mistreatment from other people. In the book, Tom Robinson is mistreated and suffers from it. In the book, Tom Robinson is convicted of rape even though he was innocent. While in trial, a fully white jury decides that Tom Robinson is guilty even though we, as the readers, find that Atticus provided much evidence to prove that he was innocent. The jury in the story was racist and showed much bias towards the white offender, Bob Ewell. Bob Ewell had seen his daughter, Mayella, taking in and kissing Tom Robinson. Once he had saw this, Tom Robinson had run away and Mayella was starting to get beat up by her own father. He then called Mr. Heck Tate, the sheriff, and accused Tom Robinson of rape even though he was the one who attacked his daughter. Another example that is showing how Tom Robinson is affected by racism is when he was nearly attacked by a mob that was lead by Walter Cunningham. “‘You know what we want,’ another man said. ‘Get Aside from the door, Mr. Finch,’” (Lee 202). This example shows how Tom Robinson is affected by social injustice and more specifically racism because he is nearly going to be attacked and killed by a group of white men while being in jail for a crime he did not commit. Throughout the story, racism is proven to be a big problem for Tom Robinson.