Inequality By Chur Novel Analysis

To begin with, with an article built to pursued an audience, the writer must stay on topic and not distract the reader with other problems. While staying on topic can become difficult, Glenn keeps his audience captivated with a new look on the problem with inequality. In roughly ten paragraphs the writer explains his thoughts without repeating his thoughts. He effectively seizes the readers attention when taking a known problem and adding his own perspective. While the topic of inequality can range from racism,

Throughout the deep studying and discussions of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, a message has resonated and created a deeper understanding inside of me. There is a terrible plague all around us. It is called inequality. Whether it is due to ethnicity, gender or religion, the effect is all the same. Inequality in America suppresses individuals from their true potential.

This includes the realization that the novel was published in 1960, and took place in the 1930s, also known as the time of The Great Depression. This infers the novel took place in a time period much different than ours today. Today one could see most of us are more accepting of promoting equality for all. In the novel one needs to understand the historical context, or what it meant to them. Is it possible they did not do what they did out of hatred, but rather fear of loss of power and lack of knowledge? According to Dr. William Thompson, psychologist, those reasons as a whole could have possibly been how people in this era thought about prejudice and segregation. During the B.C.E. era, events such as slavery were not practiced out of prejudice, but rather led to it. If one understands that during history there was a different mindset than there is today, then one could teach in a classroom that the novel does not intend to harm students, but rather teach them a historical event, how it led to prejudice and segregation, and how mindsets have changed

It is inescapable, surrounding every aspect of life, casting its shadow upon society. Out of every accomplishment the human race has made, we have never been able to see through the boundaries that we build between ourselves. We have never been able to conquer the social restraints that are of our own doing. They exist without exception, bordering any difference between any people. Inequality is the oldest challenge that society has faced, and it is the hardest to defeat. While it has changed and transformed itself, inequality has existed throughout all of human history, including now, and the 1930s, the time in which Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird is set. Inequality in the 1930s and now share many similarities, but are also very different. The constraints of class and social inequality of the 1930s are accurately portrayed in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and show parallels between then and now.

Have you ever realized how far society has come in accepting others and their differences, or saw that behaviors haven’t changed, but have gotten worse. In To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, these issues are displayed. This literary merit showcases these social injustices form a child’s point of view, in order to make the author’s purpose for writing stronger, as well as an eye opener. In society, there is a divide of the sexes, races, and within those divisions is a dimension between financial standings.

Equality means for all to be equal. However, this “equality” that is spoken of hardly exists in our society today and most definitely not in the past. Living in today’s society, many classifications are given to us. Things like gender, race, social status, wealth, background, age, and many other factors have come to define a single person in our world. Sadly, our world is full of prejudice that uses these classifications to it’s advantage. In the justice system, although we like to believe otherwise, there is inequality due to these classifications and our pre-conceived thoughts on a person, which is defined by single factors. Inequality is something that exists in this world, yet the majority of the world ignores it, even though we know it isn’t right. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee raises awareness for inequality by showing us that due to our classifications of socio-economic status, age, and race, justice is not applied to everyone equally.

Leading on from the levels of segregation, the impact and expectations of society restricted women and students in this time period, and is a motif throughout Stockett’s novel. In the novel it becomes evident that black men, women and white women both face challenges but of different extremes. In 1954 there was a supreme court case which saw Brown against the Board of Education. In this time it was very unconventional for an organisation to challenge the government. This was uncommon at the time as America was in the ‘golden era’, where the economy was booming and the government was putting new laws into action. The aim of this court case would’ve seen the ‘separate but equal’ order being reversed as both the black and white students would

The narrator’s allusion to slavery contrasts previously mentioned law of the bluest eye thus showing the mindset of society; specific traits are what determine if one is important. Because of that mindset, the black community is stereotyped. They are “not strong (only aggressive)/ [they are] not free (only licensed)/ [they are] not compassionate, only polite” (3.1-3) according to those stereotypes. Through a juxtaposition the narrator contrasts positive and negative characteristics that are associated with a targeted group of people. The negative traits suggest that a community is subordinate to a different group by stating that the community is only licensed and requires the approval of the group above

Rothenberg realizes that race also affects privilege. While at a New Year’s Eve party Rothenberg notices that she was the only white person. “White people carry their privilege wherever they go; I knew my minority status was only temporary.”(91). On pages 94 and 95, Rothenberg talks about how “right and wrong are defined by the behavior of those with social and economic clout, the right gender, the right skin color. When those people do things, they become right or are judged differently than when identical acts are committed by people with a lower socioeconomic status.”(94). There was a study that compared the behavior of two groups of teenage boys: one group consisted of high school students from an affluent white suburban school and the other consisted of boys in a juvenile detention home who were for the most part were poor or non-white. The conclusion showed that both groups had committed the same kinds of law breaking with the same frequency. “Whether they found themselves in class at seventeen or doing time seemed to be entirely a matter of their class and/ or race.”(95). This is shocking because, as Rothenberg says, “so much of what we are taught makes race, class and gender privilege invisible or actively teaches students not to use these forms of oppression as categories for analyzing experience.

Just as there is a sense of inequality between black and white people in the story, there is a sense that

Privilege plays a major role in the novel “To Kill a Mocking Bird “by Harper Lee. Set in 1930’s during the great depression in the southern part of America where racism is predominant and still is in some parts of the world, portrays the lesson of “Privilege is real from race to baking cakes. Sometimes you’re born into it, and sometimes you’re born with it”. The bitter reality of this lesson is that it still exists and is hard to come to an end.

Social classes have been prominent in societies since the beginning of civilizations. These classes are shaped by the distribution of unequal opportunities amongst each division. Social classes can result from varying factors such as race, gender and wealth. Due to social classes, there comes social inequalities. Social inequalities are beneficial to people only at the top of the hierarchy. For those at the bottom, social inequalities has the opposite effect. Rather than the bottom of the hierarchy benefiting, they struggle with everyday aspects such as financial issues while those at the top are prospering. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird strongly portrays the social inequalities in a society. The novel is set in Maycomb during the 1930s and highlights the different social classes within the community. The different social statures demonstrate that social inequalities have negative impacts on a community by causing resentment of one another.

Harper Lee and Charles M. Blow are suggesting that different people are often against each other, those of lower status are treated unfairly and the cruel actions taken place against black people are seen as ‘normal’. All of this is caused or has something to do with social hierarchy and justice.

The inequality starts in the school, but continues because of the school. Turner claims that the there is two different mobility systems in the school; sponsored and contest. Sponsored is similar to ascribed status, while contest is similar to achieved status. Referring back to the children’s goals and ambitions, a sponsored system would help them realize the possibility of their goals earlier in life than the contest system would. In the case of the sponsored system, the child would be ripped away from their family in order to achieve their goals if the child was viewed as something greater than their family. This would be like a child going to a special boarding school. This child is selected very early one. In a contest system, the child’s goal is left up to them if they would be able to achieve their goals. They are in control of their achievements, not the superiority.

It is difficult to find a utopian society, one that boasts perfection and happiness for all. Throughout history, the human race has gone through periods of injustice, social inequality and morally questionable doings.There are many memoirs and accounts of social injustice, though the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee reflects upon it in a perceptive manner that is difficult to embody. The social hierarchy benefited no one, from the lowest ranked coloured folk’s who were burdened by stereotypes, the outcasts whom fooled their community with deceit and the emotional damage of facing societal expectations from the upper class of society. By analyzing Lee’s work, one can concur that a socially unequal society that promotes classism destroys the unity of a community through the various adversities each class faced.