preview

Race In To Kill A Mockingbird, By Harper Lee

Good Essays

“Race doesn’t Only Separate”
Martin Luther King Jr exclaimed, “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.” In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, she uses the character of Scout as a narrator, to express the story of her father, Atticus Finch, who defended Tom Robinson in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. During the course of the book, Scout and Jem, Scout’s brother, learn crucial lessons from her dad, such as understanding people’s point of view and innocence. Even though separation according to race is encountered in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee argues that race also shapes people’s language, their social relationships and social status, including their behavior between themselves. She wants to demonstrate that race also affects conduct between people.
Harper Lee has depicted the separation between Caucasians and African-Americans in To Kill a Mockingbird by showcasing how White talk and African-American talk influences conduct between people of different races. For instance, when the children, Scout and Jem went to the church with Calpurnia, and they accessed the church. Subsequently, Scout stated, ‘“Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears.’ Meanwhile, Calpurnia said, ‘Now what if I talked white folks' talk at church, and with my neighbours? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses’” (139). Specifically, Scout stated, she “scratched her …show more content…

Today, in the Southern United States, there’s more equality and conduct isn’t officially influenced by race but is our work done

Get Access