There were 17,250 people dead. This is the amount of people murdered last year in the U.S. alone. Why does this happen? Pure cruelty. There is tight tensions with the U.S. and North Korea that could start a nuclear war and kill most of us. Why is this possible? Cruelty between one another. This is just two examples of the cruelty in our world today and for the passed hundreds of years. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird cruelty plays a big part in the problems that go on in this small town in Alabama. I think if cruelty was eliminated Tom Robinson wouldn’t be dead, Boo Radley wouldn’t hide, and the whole view on equality between blacks and whites would change.
First Tom, a black man from the book, would be alive if people weren’t cruel. He would never have been blamed for rape and wouldn’t have got brutally murdered by 17 shots in the back. Tom was blamed by Mayella Ewell when she said, “Fore I knew it he was on me. Just run up behind me he did… he chunked me on the floor an’ choked me’n took advantage of me”(Lee, 180). She wanted to cover up the abuse that her father had done so she blamed the poor, kind-hearted, nigger down yonder. If she would have thought about Tom as a person and have been kinder Tom wouldn’t have gone to court and eventually got killed. Also if Mr. Ewell did the right thing and taken the blame for his actions he would have spared a man’s life. Instead he did what Mayella did and said, “I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my
Ever since the humans have been separated into different ethnic groups racism has existed on Earth. The idea of racism has existed since the beginning of time but today racism is not as prominent as it once was but it still lives. Racism is kept alive through microaggressions or the eununciating of an offensive and racist comment. During the Great Depression, racism was in its prime, Harper Lee’s renown novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, brings the ideology of racism to light. Throughout the novel, Lee delivers a powerful message on the topic of racism which is the white community’s racist mindsets about black people has caused colored people to be unjustly tried in court, be dehumanized, and receive unnecessary hostility constantly by the white
Discrimination: a noun that is defined as, “the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex”. There are many types of discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story that is taken place during the Great Depression . Scout is the main character and her father Atticus is defending a man named Tom Robinson, who is a Negro. There are three main topics that are discriminated in To Kill a Mockingbird. The three main topics that are discriminated are socioeconomics, gender, and most importantly, racism.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the character Scout has the personality trait of being aggressive. Scout also has a character trait of being unladylike. An example of how Scout is aggressive is that after Scout and her brother Jem had gotten there guns for Christmas they were headed to “the Landing”. Before they left their father had said they couldn’t take the guns with, she had already been planning on shooting her cousin. “ He declined to let us take our rifles to the Landing. ( I had already begun to think of shooting Francis)…” (Lee Pg. 106). This is an example of Scout being aggressive because she was thinking about shooting a family member. Shooting someone is considered aggressive behavior because it is purposefully causing
Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply based on their race and that some racial groups are superior to others. This has been a problem in our world forever. In to Kill a Mockingbird there are so many racist events and it reflects on the society as a whole till this day. The book setting was the 1930’s in a small county of Maycomb, where most people were racist and discriminatory. People think racism has died off, but it is still a huge problem. People choose to raise their children and teach them that racism is okay and that is how there is still racism today. There are so many statistics out there based on skin color that right there is even racist if everyone is equal why are there polls being taken separating people by the color of their skin?
In conclusion, the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee has many examples of cruelty in the world, as shown by the characters Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Dolphus Raymond. Boo Radley’s case is more general, throughout the entire world. Because of the cruelty he sees, he decides to stay inside his house, not because he’s forced to, which is common belief in the neighborhood. Tom Robinson’s case is towards black
Set in a sleepy Southern hamlet, the book highlights a kid’s journey through racism and prejudice. As such, the book contains examples that proves violent faith is never a just cause. The most obvious instance is the fate of Tom Robinson. Tom was wrongfully convicted by a court of law for raping a girl he never had. The jury was presented with clear facts pointing to acquittal. However, racial bias had it otherwise. Another instance of violent faith being denounced is the attack on Jem Finch by Bob Ewell. Bob looked like a idiot in the courtroom via cross-questioning, and he vowed revenge on Atticus and co. He attacked Jem after a play had ended and nearly killed him out of hate. If it wasn’t for Boo Radley, he would’ve succeeded. Lee, the author, shows that prejudice can lead to terrible actions. One final example of violent faith (racism) being denounced by the author is the near-lynching of Tom before his conviction. A group of local men, spurred on by racism, had planned to kill him before the trial to bring “justice” to the supposed rapist. Atticus was threatened with weapons, and if it wasn’t for Mr. Underwood and the kids, things would’ve ended up violently. The point is that faith (racism) shouldn’t be followed if it leads to blood. This instance clearly shows that these men shouldn’t have been following their rooted principle of hatred against blacks. Through these examples and others, To Kill a Mockingbird also resonates Mr. Hale’s good word about Salemite beliefs in The
Cruelty is displayed in many ways for Tom Robinson. Tom is an African American man who was accused of raping a white women. The problem is that Tom’s arm is all mangled up from an accident when he was young. “It ain’t right, Atticus said Jem. No son, it’s not right said Atticus” (Lee, 212). Jem and Atticus have this conversation when they get home from the trial and they have heard that Tom is guilty. They both know that the evidence was saying that he was not guilty, yet the jury voted that he was guilty just because he was black. That is not only cruel but it is also prejudice. “Seventeen bullet holes in him. They did not have to shoot him that much” (Lee, 235). Tom was moved to a prison after the trial and was trying to escape when he died. They shot him 17 times, isn’t that a little much? He would have died with 2 or 3 shots in him, so it was cruel of the guards to shoot him that many times. My final piece of evidence is that it was cruel of the Ewells to blame Tom in the first place. He was just helping out Mayella from
As the events took place in the 1930s, the message in the book can relate to the effective problems in the South. Numerous times it was pointed out that white people’s will predominates over that of people of color, according to the book, “I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…” (Lee 238). The idea of racism and discrimination was consistent throughout the whole novel when it came to Tom’s case. The evidence, however, does not necessarily demonstrate how cruelty functioned as a whole. In my opinion, cruelty more functions as a major social factor as it reveals more about society rather than politics. The more the reader found out about Tom’s case, the more he learned about people–their flaws and
LT Vigil Mrs. petty American Literature March 1, 2016 An Unexpected Mockingbird: how one judges Though out the book To Kill a Mocking Bird, there are many types of metaphors found in the book. Some may show how it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. Others may show how America used to be in the past, or how the times have not changed.
This novel brings to life anger because of how Bob Ewell faces young Tom Robinson. Ewell, along with his friends and fellow-conspirators, are furious with Robinson for being a negro, and together, they create the scenario. Robinson could not have possibly committed the crime, though, but that doesn’t save him from punishment. The judge was on his side, but he was afraid of Ewell’s wrath, which led to the guilty verdict. If Ewell and his peers had not been racist and furious, then Robinson would’ve survived. This is a true sample of what goes awry when a deadly sin is
Prejudice and discrimination are present in the world today. In western countries, women are often paid less than men although they work the same job, and the same hours. This is an example of sexism in the real world. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, prejudice and discrimination affects all main characters usually in a negative way in Maycomb County. The trial of Tom Robinson would not have happened if it were not for the topic of racism. Ageism, sexism, and racism are continuously occurring in TKAM. Ageism generally happens to Scout, the narrator. Many people treat Scout differently than adults because they think she does not understand anything they are saying but she understands a lot more than they think. Sexism affects
The Good, The Bad, The Dignified? Harper Lee, Author of To Kill a Mockingbird wrote “I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.” All people are born as a pure innocent infant. As life progresses, the purity within is exposed to evil.
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless,” by Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa’s quote about kindness can extend to more than kind words. It can also describe actions, and the effect in which they have on people. Kindness is a quality, which anyone can possess, even those who are unexpected to show it to others. This is shown through the way in which the characters interact in Harper Lee’s historical fiction novel To Kill A Mockingbird.
Cruelty, just like a sadness, is one of "those" things that nearly everyone one can fall under the shade of, no matter which end of it they were/are at. Something that can be as simple as a few empty words can have such a venemous bite, sometimes even infectious. What is the root cause of cruelty though? Everything has a stem and cruelty, no doubt, is not a special circumstance. Desperation, hatred, anger, dangerous egos, everything on the left side of the spectrum seems to be more than just a recurring theme when it comes to cruelty, the same as primordial soup was the breeding ground for life, the aforementioned negative emotions seem to be a breeding ground for cruelty. In "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee cruelty plays more than
Usually, in the south, where this book takes place, whites saw blacks as beneath them. This becomes increasingly clear in the trial. In the book, a disrespectable white man accuses a reputable black man named Tom Robinson of raping his daughter, even though he could not have possibly done it based on the evidence ( ). Even so, the jury found him guilty of all charges, which demonstrates extreme racism. After that, he was thrown back into jail until his appeal trial could have a hearing.