A Speech On Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Prejudice is embedded into society and is taught from generation to generation. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the setting is 1930’s in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. The people in this town look down on those different from them and have been taught prejudice for generations. Even though it was set so long ago the lessons are still applicable to many situations today. In this story a young girl named Scout is the narrator and her father is a lawyer who is representing a black man accused of raping a white girl. It is obvious what the fate of the man will be but the story highlights how and why an innocent man is sent to prison and later murdered.

During the 1930’s depression, there was a great divide between black and white America. There were many communities and groups who had been exposed to the same treatment and persecution as the Negroes in To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee has used a small town setting, such as that in To Kill a Mockingbird, to illustrate America’s views on white supremacy and the inferiority of the black race. The author has illustrated view that are expressed world-wide through her characters in Maycomb county.

Prejudice: noun. “Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience” (Dictionary). Prejudice is one of the most relevant things in the lives of two children, Jem and Scout, in a small town, Maycomb, Alabama. It’s the 1930s, the Great Depression has already hit, and racism has already impacted this small, innocent town. Jem and Scout learn what their town is hiding by finding out who their neighbors really are. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, prejudice is like a second language to the people of Maycomb. It is shown by gender, race, and social status.

Many of the characters have parallel personalities which can be a reasoning behind their strong intertextual link and some of the main ideas were the same in two texts. Both deal with racism and discrimination in small country towns and both explore the distant relation between law and justice. Prejudice being the main coinciding theme, as well as showing signs of irony and hypocrisy, both are written in the same narrative voice, in a childlike tone. For most part, Lee makes sure Scout gives the readers the events from her childhood perspective as she understood them at the time, rather than imposing a commentary from the older perspective of her when she is telling the story, which makes the narrative perspective naïve. Perkins engages the audience with a warm-hearted and pure character Charlie, who likes to learn new lessons in life. As he is older naturally, he has more experiences in life and is able to pick up the discrimination obscured around him. This is shown through the fact that at first, the protagonist Charlie realises that Jasper is not what society deems him as “a thief, a liar, a thug, a truant. He’s lazy and unreliable. Jasper Jones is the example of where poor aptitude and attitude will lead”. Through the use of the protagonists the theme is presented in a way that allows the reader to realise the harsh reality, yet it is still demonstrated in an approachable and relatable way, further enhanced by the first-person narration of the texts. The discrimination

Prejudice is defined as: “An unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.” Harper Lee explores this theme throughout To Kill A Mockingbird with various characters demonstrating or being affected by it, especially because it is set in the turbulent time of 1930s southern USA. In particular, the theme is prominent in the characters Arthur (Boo) Radley, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson. I will begin with Arthur (Boo) Radley.

Prejudice is seen throughout the world in many forms even after the Civil Rights Movement. To Kill a Mockingbird shows the extreme prejudice that African Americans were faced with at that time period. This book shows prejudice through character interactions.

To Kill a Mockingbird taught viewers a lot of lessons about racial prejudice, prejudice, and bravery, and that caused the critics to praise the film. An example of racial prejudice in the film is when Atticus is sitting outside the jail protecting Tom Robinson because there was a concern of a lynch mob coming for Tom. Everyone in the mob believes Tom is guilty because of the color of his skin. Then, Scout, Jem, and Dill run up to defend Atticus from the mob. Scout spots Mr. Cunningham among the group, and asks him how his entailments are coming along. Scout also says she goes to school with his son. When Scout tells Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad, the group and Mr. Cunningham look ashamed. Then, Mr. Cunningham tells the group to clear out. The group of people that came to lynch

Scout's perception of prejudice is evolved through countless experiences in Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird. Written in the nineteen thirties, To Kill a Mockingbird promotes the understanding of self-discovery through Scout, an intelligent and outspoken child living with respectable family in Maycomb County, Alabama. Throughout various encounters in the novel, Harper Lee causes Scout's perspective to change and develop from innocence to awareness and eventually towards understanding.

“To better understand a person you have to climb up inside their skin and walk around in it.” The quote previously stated by Atticus in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is an unveiling of the upcoming forms of prejudice. The setting for the novel is a fictitious town called Maycomb. This town is situated in Alabama. The racial prejudice shown in the novel has a lot to do with the town being situated in the southern United States. The backwardness and narrow-mindedness of the community fueled racism in Maycomb. These negative qualities account for the social and religious prejudices in the novel. Maycomb people have very inward looking views and so these views are passed on

Prejudice and discrimination is looked down upon, yet people still continue to be judgmental and have preconceived assumptions about others. It is a common thing that still happens in today’s society. To be particular, racial discrimination is one example of prejudice and is based solely on the color of one’s skin. In the story To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is a caring individual who tries his hardest to treat everyone he meets with appreciation and respect. However, he is African American, which influences him and the other characters' lives in different ways. All he wants to do is help out another character, Mayella, which inevitably costs him his life in the end. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the character of Tom Robinson to illustrate the fact that innocent people are sometimes victimized to a racist society.

There was a lack of evidence of the crime actually taking place. On page 271, Atticus says, “The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place.” This shows that no one knew if the crime happened or if the Ewells were lying. Furthermore, Ms. Ewell’s bruising provides evidence to support Tom Robinson’s case. “If her right eye was blacked and she was beaten mostly on the right side of her face, it would tend to show that a left-handed person did it,” on page 238. Later on in the trial, the jury saw that Robinson’s left arm is crippled. This means that Tom Robinson would not be likely to have been Mayella Ewell’s attacker. On the other hand, there was a person who was on the scene and is left-handed, Bob Ewell. On page 237, Mr. Ewell demonstrated which hand he wrote with, his left, and also claimed not to be ambidextrous. Hence, Bob Ewell is a suspect for the cause of his daughter’s

Prejudices are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.

Prejudice, the chain of hatred and ignorance, has haunted our history at every step. In the twenty-first century prejudice and its destruction can be viewed in many forms of modern literature. Two of the most famous and rejoiced literatures that examine the theme of prejudice are Harper Lee’s realist fiction novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and Martin Luther King’s heart warming speech ‘I Have a Dream’. Both texts explore the theme of prejudice of white Americans on the Blacks in the racially tense times of the early twentieth century. Unlike Harper Lee, Martin Luther King goes a step further to persuade the audience that there is prejudice present and we should be motivated to stop this evil from blossoming in our world.

what a bad father he is and why his family have been given a bad name.

“To Kill a Mocking Bird” is a novel which was written by Harper Lee. In my essay I will discuss how Harper Lee explores the theme of prejudice by looking at the writing techniques and how they affect people.