Racial Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

During the Great Depression in the United States, many were left poor and with an insufficient amount of food and money. Due to such despair in the 1930’s, racial prejudice views inflicted more pain upon the people. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee places the people of Maycomb in 4 separate classes, splitting up many of the characters based upon their race and economic stance. The rich, white folks would be examples as Atticus, Miss Maudie, and Aunt Alexandra. The middle class and lower would be the Cunninghams. The lower and poorer folks were the Ewells, and finally the most poorest and the lesser of all classes were the African Americans, such as Tom Robinson. These economic stances and separation that is inflicted causes the events

She has racial prejudice views that she tries to enforce on the Finch family which causes some negativity in the household and an antagonist view upon her own character. She feels as though the Finches are civil and are of higher stance so she wants her whole family to look as such regarding clothing, presence, and attitude towards other races lower than the whites. She depicts such racial views to her niece and nephew and neither really appreciate her views. She mentions how someone poorer than the Finches should not even associate with them, such as the Cunninghams. As she states, “The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till his shoe shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit but he’ll never be like Jem.” Alexandra thinks of Walter as low class and how he'll never rise up to the stance to be like Jem, who is richer and civilized. Aunt Alexandra states further how “Finch women aren't interested in those kind of people,” mainly referring to the Cunninghams. She forbids Scout from being friends with Walter because he is of lower class and shouldn't associate with trashy folks. She even tells Atticus to fire Cal, the housemaid and mainly not because of race, but because she is uncivilized and if she is around the Finches, then they themselves would become uncivilized if one were to be amongst

Lee gives a description of the Ewells as such with “no economic fluctuations changed their status-people like the Ewells lived as guests of the county in prosperity as well as in the depths of a depression.” She describes them as low class and how they are quite ostracized from everyone else. Seen as outsiders, they are the lowest of low to white folks. They are seen as white trash. Lee goes on to say how they lived behind the town’s garbage dump, showing how people view the Ewells because of their run down place and their bad living conditions. It shows the contradiction of the Finches and the Ewells upper class and lower class, how the Finches have a nice home while the Ewells have a run down place by the garbage, depicting even what they are, white trash. However, no matter how low of class they may be and how poor they are, Tom Robinson will still be found guilty because he is black. At no fault of his own, Tom is a black man who is accused of raping a white woman, and a white jury cannot just ignore a white woman. The guilty verdict was depicted because a white man was going against a black man, and in that stance alone, the African Americans were lower than the whites in the town of Maycomb. Therefore, Tom was automatically guilty despite the piling evidence that he couldn't have done it. It was a matter of Mayella actually assaulting Tom and wanting to kiss him, however once her