ipl-logo

Theme Of Racial Inequality In To Kill A Mockingbird

754 Words4 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. Tom Robinson is a black man who is wrongfully convicted of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell. This novel goes through Scout's life from when she was 6, till she is 9. She lives in the town of Maycomb Alabama, and lives an innocent life until about halfway through the story, where she begins to ask questions. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout shows the readers that racial inequality creates an unjust society through the African American community, through the people surrounding colored folks, and through Tom Robinson’s Case. The first example of the consequences of racial inequality is the African American community in Maycomb. When Jem and Scout go to Calpurnia's church, they are both surprised …show more content…

Racial inequality was a problem in the time period of Scout and Jem. Now a days though, it has cleared up and everybody is treated about the same. There are still some people who do not like different races. To Kill a Mockingbird is important because it shows how grievous things were back then. It shows that the African American community was super poor compared to white people. It shows that even people around the colored people were treated poorly. And it shows that the justice system is corrupt and is unfair to African Americans. It is a solace that racial inequality is becoming less and less of a problem. The United States now has an African American president which never would have been thought of back

Show More
Related
866 Words | 4 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird Essay Harper Lee’s Book To Kill a Mockingbird has had a lot of controversies over the years. This is because of the many different themes it covers in the book. The novel is narrated by a little girl named Jean Louise Finch, also known as Scout. Scout is driven, mature, and wise for her age. There is a lot of changes that happen throughout the book for the community and also the children in the book because of what their father is doing.

Read More
1156 Words | 5 Pages

“To Kill a Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee is an award winning novel published in the 1960’s it explores the main theme of racial differences in the early 1930’s and the many struggles, acceptance challenges and problems that black people faced during this time period. Set in the country town of Maycomb County, Southern Alabama it follows the story of a family, a lawyer named Atticus Finch and his two children Scout and Jem. As the two children, Scout and Jem grow up their father teaches them life lessons which in that time and in their community were said to be different and unlike everyones else’s ideas which were therefore redeemed as un normal. Proceeding through the story it uncovers the harsh ways of growing up and being introduced

Read More
562 Words | 3 Pages

Scout is a young girl who is growing up with the argument that surrounds her father's court case. Atticus Finch, her father, is a lawyer who is defending a black man named Tom Robinson. Tom was charged with raping a white girl. The lives of the characters are changed by Maycomb’s worst disease which is racism and this is shown throughout the book, but in chapter 12 we see the side of reverse discrimination involving the blacks to the whites.

Read More
549 Words | 3 Pages

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is a story about inequality, injustice and racism seen through the eyes of two innocent children, Jem and Scout. Jem and Scout live in Maycomb, Alabama and learn these sad lessons through their relationships with their father Atticus, their maid Calpurnia, their mysterious neighbor Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused of a terrible crime. Through their relationship with Boo and Tom, Jem and Scout learn about racism and inequality that changes how they see the world. Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are two different people who share similar struggles with inequality throughout this story. Boo and Tom experience a form of racism and discrimination.

Read More
951 Words | 4 Pages

26. Jem and Scout are facing many social consequences because Atticus is representing Tom Robinson. Other children at school and sometimes even their own neighbors are calling their father offensive names and speaking poorly of him. As a result, Jem and Scout sometimes go to extreme lengths to defend Atticus and his name. Scout got into multiple fights with her classmates because they taunted her father, which allows the readers to assume that Scout does not react to the taunting and teasing really well.

Read More
647 Words | 3 Pages

Think back to when you were little kid around 7 or so and you had no worries about life or anything. All you would think about is candy and toys and nothing about the world of adults. No worries of the weather or what the grown ups would talk about. Scout’s childhood innocence takes a turn from her care free days to the real world of racism and bad people. In To Kill a Mockingbird Scout witnesses the trial of Tom Robinson and how racism is taught to her unknowingly from it.

Read More
152 Words | 1 Pages

Racial Injustice is when you deny someone their rights based on race or background. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the author uses acts of cruelty towards Tom Robinson as a way to convey the theme of racial injustice. This theme contributes to the overall meaning of the novel by supporting the statement: “That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”.(Lee 119) During the 1930’s in the South, African Americans were discriminated against due to their race.

Read More
177 Words | 1 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about a young white, inquisitive girl, Scout Finch, and her family, who live in the quaint town of Maycomb, Alabama. This story takes place in the early 1930’s, the years of the Great Depression and Jim crow era when poverty and unemployment were spread through the United States. Scout learns about the racist world she lives in when her dad, a lawyer, defends Tom Robinson, an innocent, black man, who was charged with the rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although Harper Lee, the arthur of To Kill a Mockingbird, intended Atticus to be the hero of the novel, the true hero is Tom Robinson because he was victim to the antagonist of racism during the Jim Crow era. Harper Lee intended Atticus to be the hero

Read More
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.

Read More
868 Words | 4 Pages

To Kill A Mockingbird Behind every great story there is the coexistence of good and evil that is materialized into the essence of themes. These resulting themes are scattered throughout Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel revolves around the Finch siblings, Jem and Scout, as they grow up in the southern 1930s and start to discover the truth about their society with their father who is also a talented lawyer, Atticus Finch, and the people of Maycomb County. Atticus faces the dilemma of sticking to his virtues by defending Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman: Mayella Ewell.

Read More
672 Words | 3 Pages

Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, must defend the man in court and from the town that wants to outright kill him. I believe that the book is very important because it talks about how the man is facing unfair discrimination because of his race and how the people of the town need to listen to his side of the story. The book is considered one of the most popular and taught American written book of all time and has been apart of many school curriculums because of it’s important themes (“Grimes, William,” 2016). Recently, however, many parents are trying to pull the book from school reading lists because of the material it

Read More
1592 Words | 7 Pages

Working Title In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee exemplifies the theme of racism and how it impaired and blemished the citizens of Maycomb County. One figure that Lee uses to represent racism is the “mad dog,” Tim Johnson. When Tim went out of control and became absurd and perilous to Maycomb County, every character in the novel knew that something had to be done about it. Like Tim, racism can and will eventually get out of control.

Read More
824 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird Jean “Scout” Louise Finch is greatly influenced by the world around her. The novel is written in the 1930’s in a time period of injustice, segregation, and the Great Depression. In Maycomb County, Scout lives with her brother, Jem, her father, Atticus, and their maid, Calpurnia. Atticus is a lawyer who is assigned a case to defend Tom Robinson, an African-American man, accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a 19 year old girl. Scout’s character traits are greatly influenced because of the trial and everything she learns from it.

Read More
1169 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel, ‘To kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates the small, imaginary town, the Maycomb County, as a place where racism and social inequality happens in the background of 1930s America. Not only the segregation between whites and blacks, but also the poor lived in a harsh state of living. As Scout, the young narrator, tells the story, Lee introduces and highlights the effects of racism and social inequality on the citizens of Maycomb County by using various characters such as Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Mayella Ewell. Firstly, Harper Lee portrays Boo Radley as a victim of social inequality through adjectives and metaphor in the phrase, “There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten;” ‘Long jagged scar that ran across his face’ tells us that Boo Radley has stereotype about his appearance, which forces to imagine Boo as a scary and threatening person. The phrase, ‘yellow and rotten’ make the readers think as if Boo Radley is poor and low in a social hierarchy, as he cannot afford to brush his teeth.

Read More
1037 Words | 5 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird is a story that takes place during the Great Depression in a small town located in southern Georgia in the 1930s. The book focuses on Jean Louise “Scout” and Jeremy Atticus “Jem” and their coming of age and the major events that made the two grow up. One of the events was the trial of the Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, in which their father, Atticus Finch, was defending Tom, a man of color. Mockingbirds are used throughout the book to represent people that were harmed by the society even though they were innocent. There is a common misinterpretation of the meaning behind the Mockingbird leading many to believe that Scout is the Mockingbird in the story.

Read More

More about Theme Of Racial Inequality In To Kill A Mockingbird

Open Document