How Does Lee Use Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

A major theme of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the frequent act of characters viewing others with prejudice. An example of this subject is found in the first part of Lee’s book as Atticus Finch, the father of Scout and Jem, is believed to be an inadequate teacher and father to his children. Miss Caroline Fisher states on page 23, “.tell your father not to teach you any more. Your father does not know how to teach.” (Lee).

Tom Robinson was an innocent African American man who was brutally killed after an attempt to escape the prison he was sent to for being accused of raping Mayella Ewell. On August 4 Robinson appeared in trial with Atticus Finch. A white girl, Mayella Ewell, and her father had accused Robinson of raping Miss Ewell. They claimed he had beat her on her face and about her neck. Her right eye had been punched. Mr. Ewell claimed that it was Robinson who punched her but Mr. Ewell is left-handed and Tom does not have a single working muscle in his left arm. It was clear that Mr. Ewell had beat Mayella after catching her kissing a black man. Tom Robinson was not guilty, yet

Harper Lee’s coming-of-age story reminds readers how far society has come. In the time period in which the novel is set, society faced many issues involving racism and discrimination. Now in the 2000’s the world doesn't focus on the colour of one’s skin but the person it carries. Harper Lee effectively represents African-American history in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Throughout the novel Lee shows how racism negatively affected Maycomb County’s population by utilizing major themes including racial discrimination and the right to a fair trial. Lee’s novel has a similar story to multiple cases in the early 1900’s as well as showing links to the troubles the town faced with the Great Depression and social standings.

What if one of literature’s most celebrated novels wasn’t as good as one originally thought? Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird tells the story of Scout and Jem Finch, and their friend Dill Harris, three children living in a small town in the deep south during the Great Depression. One summer, Maycomb County is thrown into racial turmoil when Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, is appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell, the white daughter of the town drunkard. Although the themes in To Kill a Mockingbird center around equality and justice, Lee sugarcoats many of the elements of racism and ultimately ends up championing the Caucasian race as opposed to delivering powerful messages about diversity.

Prejudice, a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Maycomb, Alabama is a southern area that experienced a lot of prejudices during the Great Depression. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee argues that prejudice’s affect a lot of different groups of people and is not necessary in society.

the real case of Emmett Till, in which an innocent man was persecuted simply because the color of skin was not favored with the all white jury. A case very similar to this can be seen within To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel used to bring up the topic of racism. Harper Lee uses her book To Kill a Mockingbird to bring awareness to racism by demonstrating how it can bring despair to a community. Although, people who fight against racism can bring hope to those who have been effected.

Imagine that you are in a courtroom being accused of committing a crime that you didn’t commit, but they said you were guilty anyway just because of your skin color. This is one of the problems in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Must Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Just Mercy is about a lawyer who deals with discrimination specifically in death row cases. To Kill a Mockingbird is about a young girl named Scout who grew up during the Great Depression. Racial injustice can be seen in To Kill a Mockingbird, Just Mercy and in modern day.

What if this is happening in this generation? What if it is going on today? Wait, it already is, prejudice, and it is ubiquitous. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a very significant, meaningful and powerful book. The main characters are Jem, Scout, Atticus, and Boo. It takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. It takes one through the experience of growing up under extraordinary circumstances in the 1930’s. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, uses the society of Maycomb to demonstrate the negative consequences of prejudice.

With plentiful evidence that he could not have raped Mayella Ewell, it is obvious he was convicted due to the color of his skin. Atticus chooses to defend him even though he believes it is hopeless. Mayella, whom is the girl accusing Tom Robinson, is considered above the African American community even though she is considered “lower class.” In a conversation Atticus had with his son, Jem he says this ¨In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.” This is unfortunately an accurate statement for the time period and that is why Tom Robinson is convicted for something he did not

Undoubtedly, Tom Robinson was one of the most important characters in the novel since he was an innocent man found guilty of raping a white woman. Tom was a victim of prejudice because he was unjustly convicted of a crime he did not commit based solely on the fact that he was a black man. He did not receive a fair chance of winning the case since the outcome was in favour of the woman that charged him with rape, Mayella Ewell. His defence attorney, Atticus Finch, was aware of this and so he exposed the state of mind many people in Maycomb have about black people to the jury: "The evil assumption that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates

During the Great Depression, racism was a common practice in the southern states of the US. Negros and those who opposed the intolerance were often discriminated by the rest of the bias and ignorant society, who believed in white supremacy and superiority over the other races. Maycomb, a racist town, exemplify this discrimination, imperiously judging others they view as being dissimilar from themselves. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, the author, weaves a brilliant story of prejudice, discrimination, and racism shown through the novel’s several characters and events, producing a mirror reflection of America’s racist society in the 1930’s.

In today’s society, people are not treated equally. Many people push for equality, but the problem is still occurring today. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, she uses racism to prove how people’s views on African American’s have not changed. Through the use of symbolism and diction, Harper Lee shows the idea of social injustice against blacks. Lee uses symbolism to show how innocent people are sometimes treated unfairly.

The small town of Maycomb is set in the deep South, Alabama during the 1930’s. Although events such as the Civil War, which was fought to abolish slavery over 65 years ago, had been and gone, the people of Maycomb were prejudiced against the

Tom is a single character that exposes how much racism and unfairness a coloured person has to experience every single day. Tom was put on trial for being accused of raping Mayella, Mr. Ewells daughter. Atticus provides sufficient evidence defending Tom Robinson by saying how is left hand was already broken from working at the cotton mill and also explaining how Tom is married and has a family. ADD ATTICUS'S QUOTE IN SPEECH The coloured people in Maycomb are viewed as less than human and are not accepted in their society.

In the riveting coming-of-age novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee projects the idea of acceptance of all people, through the eyes of a child. Harper Lee combats the prejudice of social standing when she proves that some of the poorest people have the best of character traits. While racism of African Americans is first and foremost in this novel, the acceptance of white people into the African American community shows racism can be beaten from both point of views. Finally, the disabilities that Arthur Radley portrays, is forgotten, when his actions help him soar above the bigotry of the people of Maycomb County. The most obvious topic is the overt racism based on a person's skin color, however, Harper Lee takes us beneath the skin to show that discrimination occurs in other ways.