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Examples Of Mob Mentality In To Kill A Mockingbird

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The decade of the 1930s was a period of incredible hardship most clearly epitomized by the Great Depression. This is just one of the events that stirred Harper Lee to write her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In that book, the subjects of Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the problems of racism were tied together. An example of a tie to the actual past of America in the early 1900s is the enforcement of Jim Crow laws in Lee’s book. Jim Crow laws were a system of classes that segregated races, primarily against black people. At the time, people thought that the laws were needed because they believed in white supremacy over black people. One example of a rule would be the unlawful action of a black man touching a white woman in any fashion. Black …show more content…

Mob mentality is the process of people being swept up in the moment when with a group and doing a deed a person would otherwise not do by themselves, such as pushing in an evacuation compared to being gentle, attending restaurants because they have more customers, and picking up a habit because other people are doing it (Smith). Furthermore, this theme has been prevalent in the past with lynching. Mob mentality helped the crowd elevate to a level where it would not have gone to before in regards to actions with violence. The crowds in an Indiana lynching went so far as to drag out to black men, beat them, then hang them, one already being dead and the other close to it (“Strange Fruit: Anniversary”). This lynching was captured in the form of a picture showing the people and how they seem elated over their idea of an accomplishment (Beitler). The residents of Lee’s town and its surrounding areas in her novel undergo periods of mob mentality. At the town jail a group of people, including Mr. Cunningham, gather to break Tom out of jail to lynch him. At that point Atticus is already at the scene and tries to talk the mob out of getting him. This goes on until Scout recognizes Mr. Walter Cunningham and starts to make small talk with him about his son and his ongoing entailment. It is then that Walter realizes he is singled out and being looked at as an individual, not just a portion of the mob. Because of that revelation, he calls off the mob and the group leaves Tom alone until his trial (Lee). From this excerpt of Lee’s book, the concept of mob mentality can be connected to her novel and the real world, as can the idea of

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