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Examples Of Hypocrisy In To Kill A Mockingbird

Decent Essays

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird was on the ALA’s banned books list almost as soon as it was published and continues to be challenged all over the world today. But why is it still being questioned? Ironically, the biggest reason for that is this simple novel paints the best people in the American South as hypocrites. Of course, people were not okay with that and continue to be adamant about it. However, that’s not the reason people utilize when they complain, usually it’s something to do with racial slurs, which is an even bigger hypocrisy in itself. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses a mockingbird to personify innocence, which combined with details that describe hypocrisy allow readers to experience the prejudice in Maycomb and consider what people had to face during that time. …show more content…

According to dictionary.reference.com, the word hypocrisy means a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, that one does not really possess. What Lamb means by this relays that all lawyers had a certain innocence as children that was lost to them when they became lawyers. They began to see the world for it’s prejudiced truth. In the novel, the sheriff must prosecute Tom Robinson for a crime he did not commit. Atticus must defend Robinson even though there is no hope for him to be acquitted.When Lee chose to use this quote she highlighted the relevance to her mockingbird symbol. That loss of innocence can lead to a lawyer displaying hypocritical activities, such as defending something immoral. It may also lead to a prosecution accusing an innocent person of a crime. This quote ideally represents a lot of the themes in To Kill a

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