To Kill A Mockingbird Prejudice Quotes

The Curse of Prejudice Albert Einstein once said, “What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.” This quote demonstrates the ubiquitous plot in the novel on how people usually follow what others think instead of thinking for themselves. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee suggests that one of the significant ways to circumvent the prejudice that arises from deceiving appearances is by a personal connection to others. This is evidenced by Boo Radley, Mrs. Dubose, and Atticus Finch. To begin, Boo Radley faces prejudice from the people in the town of Maycomb who view him as frightening and menacing. Jem, Scout, and Dill are victims of this assumption when Jem says, ‘“I hope you’ve got it through your head that

You started it, remember”’ (Lee 13-14). When Boo was a teenager, he was acquainted with some of the Cunninghams from Old Sarum that were a part of a gang. Boo’s involvement made others deem him a substandard person. The group of boys found themselves troubled when they locked the church’s official, Mr. Connor, in an outhouse. The town decided to send the group of boys to an industrial school. However, Boo’s father decided it would be better to keep him down in the basement. This isolation keeps Boo away from people thus making others perceive him as creepy. Even though Scout only hears Boo from rumors, she starts to see what he is really like. This begins when presents start showing up in the knot hole of the Radleys’ place. Scout does not realize that Boo has been placing presents until Atticus says to Jem, “You’re right. We’d better keep this and the blanket to ourselves. Someday, maybe Scout can thank him for covering her up” (Lee 72). Scout is confused by who Atticus is referring to until he says, “Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the

Dubose faces prejudice because of how despicable she is. Many people, including Scout and Jem, think she is mean just to ridicule others. However, this is not true. Scout thinks this is true when she says, “She [Mrs. Dubose] was vicious” (Lee 100). One day, Jem takes a baton from Scout and destroys all of Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bushes. As punishment, Jem is forced by Atticus to go to her house every day and read to her for an entire month. Under the conditions of Jem reading to Mrs. Dubose, he gains a glimpse of her real life for the first time. After a month of Jem reading to her, Scout and Jem discover that Mrs. Dubose has died. Jem does not seem to care at first until Atticus reveals Mrs. Dubose's unfortunate truth, ‘“Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict, [. . .] she took it as pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She’d have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was too contrary —”’ (Lee 111). Because of the morphine, Mrs. Dubose’s personality traits are rude and intolerant. She knew that after each fit she had, death was very close which is why she could not be positive, and who could blame her? At the end of her life, Mrs. Dubose gives Jem a white camelia which ‘embodies the adoration and is given to someone well-liked.’ Jem does not want to believe this. He thinks that Mrs. Dubose is still the same mean lady, even after her passing, and says “‘Old hell-devil, old-hell devil!’ [. . .] ‘Why can’t you just