Prejudice And Prejudice By Maya Angelou

Prejudice will always be apart of human nature. Prejudice is when one has a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Many citizens in the world do not realize they demonstrate prejudice in their life. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates prejudice through racism, social class, and sexism through certain characters, to emphasize not to judge a person before being placed in their shoes.

Prejudice is embedded into society and is taught from generation to generation. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the setting is 1930’s in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. The people in this town look down on those different from them and have been taught prejudice for generations. Even though it was set so long ago the lessons are still applicable to many situations today. In this story a young girl named Scout is the narrator and her father is a lawyer who is representing a black man accused of raping a white girl. It is obvious what the fate of the man will be but the story highlights how and why an innocent man is sent to prison and later murdered.

Prejudice is one of the world’s greatest struggles. It does not only hold society back, but is harmful to the people who do good .In Harper Lee’s book To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout and Jem live through and witness prejudice and racism in the small town of Maycomb. They see someone wrongly accused of a crime because of his race. Scout and Jem also witness and take part in prejudice against a man no one knows anything about. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee uses characterization to show the negative effects of prejudice and racism.

“Prejudiced” is the most meaningful word in Jesus Colon’s poem “Little Things are Big” because it supports character through his motivation to choose the method of inaction when confronted with possible prejudice, and is critical to the plot and structure. His fear of the word the author chose is what caused him to act a certain way, which was not helping the white woman when he could have made the choice to.

One should get to know a person before judging them because impressions are not always accurate. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior experiences racism on the Spokane Indian reservation and at Reardan, where Junior attends school. Racial discrimination makes the Indians on the reservation lose their sense of self-worth and they feel as if they deserve to be treated this way. At Reardan, Junior is in an atmosphere where his white classmates and teachers make racist jokes and nicknames targeting him. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie explains how prejudice and discriminatory behaviour endorses negative relationships between people. This can be observed through Junior’s

All throughout history, prejudice has been a part of society. Discrimination and intolerance are built into human nature. Less than 100 years ago, Blacks were still in the bonds of slavery. However, Blacks were not the only ethnical group that was ever mistreated. During the First World War, Germans in the United States were looked down upon by nearly all of the other citizens. Only a few years later, during World War II, the Japanese that happened to be in America were put into camps due to the incident at Pearl Harbor. During the mass immigration to the United States in the early 1900s, the Irish were met with signs in the workplace stating, "No Irish Need Apply." Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird focuses on two prejudices throughout

Prejudice is explained and illustrated with examples deriving from culture and treatment of African Americans and how society perceives them to be. The definition of Prejudice is, “An unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason”(Dictionary.com) The majority of humans tend to judge individuals by appearance rather than personality. Prejudice and appearance are prevalent in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein as well as today’s culture which has consequences regarding race, age, religion, etc.

Phillis Wheatley is a black, African slave, female poet, and then Christian American (Acton/ American Literature). The life of Phillis is attractive, some painful and some pleasant (poetry foundation). At that time, black skin people cannot be educated while she was American Christian and educated. Wheatley was a model of all black skin people or those were persecuted (Acton/ American Literature). She is the owner of the first published poems book in the colonies at 1773 after brought her from Africa to America; by that Wheatley was the first slave and third American woman do that (Biography). Indeed, Phillis is not her real name, but it is the ship's name which carried her to Boston; she used it until she died. Wheatley did not only change

Maya Angelou acclaimed poet and author wrote a poem entitled “America”. The poem offers words of truth of our country America. The poem begins, “ The gold of her promise, has never been mined.” America, promises us that all men are created equal. The first problem with the promise is we are not all men. The gold of her promise, address equality. Although it is promised to all in this country, its never delivered, when discrimination, of race and gender are still existent. “Her borders of justice, not clearly defined.” We all have our opinions on what justice is, because circumstances differ when we speak of justice in the terms of punishment, to make up for ones wrong doing. Yet, the borders of justice are not

1. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee shows many examples of prejudice behaviors. “Tom [Robinson] was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed’ (Lee, 323). Scout, the narrator, develops the statement by providing information about the trial. Tom Robinson was a black man living in Maycomb, he was convicted of raping Mayella Ewell, although there is no proof. Furthermore, the quote also illustrates prejudice by the automatic assumption that Tom Robinson committed the crime.

Prejudice should not exist in this world. But unfortunately, it does and it always will somehow. The book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is an inspiring book and brings out hard truths about how the world used to be, about the great depression, and in some aspects how it still is today. It follows a girl named Scout and her family through three years of her childhood. Her father, Atticus Finch, took on a very big challenge to defend a negro for raping a girl. The book sort of revolves around this event. Prejudice is in many different forms of discrimination. Throughout the book it is demonstrated by race, class, and gender.

What really is prejudice? Prejudice is an opinion based only upon personal bias, and not any actual facts or evidence. Within the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are a variety of situations where prejudice is taken into effect over facts and evidence. When Lee does this, he is not only just giving the characters some detail, but he is also showing what prejudice really means and how it can affect people. A few examples could be when scout is basing her opinion on no facts, Lila at the church getting her opinion from just the kids being white, Boo Radley being judged without facts by everyone, and Tom Robinson being black meaning is already guilty.

Imagine living in barracks, starved, then gassed because of your religion. Getting accused of raping someone because of your skin tone, then getting put in prison. Or getting spat upon because you’re a Jew. All of these things occurred at some point in history, and we are shown what this is like through novels, plays and book such as; “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, “The Merchant of Venice”, and real world occurrences such as the Holocaust. Today I will be talking to you about the ways that prejudice is portrayed in all four of the novels, plays and historic time marks.

All-American girl books teach little girls one thing; they want to grow up to be Samantha the doll. Growing up, society teaches you everything but the most important thing; social classes, and the true facts about them. All we know growing up is Samantha’s “perfect” and living the American dream. Through the eyes of society, if we are raised poor we aren’t going to go anywhere; and we learn to hate the top one percent of the population with all of the populations’ money. The girls grew up dreaming of being Samantha, but society pushed us down, and as we became young adults it struck us to dislike the one girl that little girls grew up loving; the All-American girl doll, Samantha. Classism is huge in today’s society, and not many people know what it means, because nobody teaches it anymore.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible. (Maya Angelou) By definition prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Prejudice to others is hate, judgement, and evil. The effects of prejudice are shown in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the play The Merchant of Venice, and the tragedy known as the Holocaust. Prejudice affected all people differently, but one thing is true for all; prejudice is crippling and disables those who experience it from being who they truly are and doing as they please.