Stereotypes In To Kill A Mockingbird

The novel “To Kill a Mocking Bird” is based in the fictional small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. When slavery and the Civil War were still present in the people’s way of living and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s are far from close. The novel focuses on the Finches: Scout, her brother Jem, and their father Atticus, and the trial of Tom Robinson and how it affected them and the town. Witnessing the injustice of Tom Robinson’s trial changed Scout Finch in many ways. Scout learns that there is more than one type of courage, she learns about race and its complexity, and she also changes how she views the people around her by putting herself

The characters of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird are all different in their own way. Sometimes they can seem like the most infuriating people in the world, but then again they can be helpful, loving, and caring. The citizens of Maycomb County are stereotyped a lot throughout the book. They are labeled as many different things, but some of the stereotypes made aren’t entirely correct. A lot of people in To Kill a Mockingbird stereotype others by the way they look or talk based on what society considers normal. Two of the main characters in the book are stereotyped; Scout and Atticus Finch.

In the book, a lot of racial stereotypes are found because of the fact that, in that time period, equality was not a thing. So for that reason, the author decided to discuss racism along with other things based on this time period. One example from the novel is the

Stereotypes have been around for hundreds of years, from the “savages” in 1492 after european colonization, to gender and racial stereotypes during the 1930s, and many more still in place today. Everyone has to deal with them, and we all do it in a different way. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee includes characters that break stereotypes to show how they are restricting and harmful.

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.

Lastly, prejudice is shown in To Kill a Mockingbird by social or economic status. The Cunninghams cannot pay people back in money for services or things they have been given. They pay people back by goods that they already have. People know that it’s mean to make fun of them for paying people back that way, just because of their status. Another example is that Aunt Alexandra will not let Scout play with Walter Cunningham. She says to Scout, “Because-he-is-trash, that’s why you can’t play with him,” (Lee 256). This shows that even the kids are being taught to stay within their own class, even if it is something as simple as playing with another kid. Also, the Ewells are the trash of the town, and everybody knows it. The whole town just turns and eye to them and pretends like they are not there, because they live behind the dump and are the trash of their society. So, that shows that prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird is shown by social and economical status.

As children grow up, they open their eyes to the harsh truths in the world around them that they once did not understand or question. This is experienced by the main characters of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is of a girl called Scout and her older brother, Jem, who go through the trials of growing up in the fictional small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. Racism is rampant in the mindset of the townspeople, shown when the children’s lawyer father, Atticus, takes the case of an obviously innocent African-American man and they convict him in their hearts before the trial even starts. Through this all, we can see the theme of loss of innocence in the children. Lee uses characterization to portray

Racial prejudice can be seen when one is not in their own society. Calpurnia experiences racial prejudice by being a black person who works in the white community. When talking with Jem at the black church Calpurnia says, “Suppose you and Scout talked colored folks’ talk at home it’d be out of place, wouldn’t it? Now what if I talked white folks’ talk at church, and with my neighbors? They’d think I was puttin’ on airs to beat Moses” (Lee 167). This shows that Calpurnia lives a double life to fit

In the story “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the main character Scout realizes the town she lives in is full of bias and prejudice toward negros. Scout, the only daughter of lawyer Atticus Finch, is faced with the activism that follows this prejudice when her father decides to defend a negro, Tom Robinson, in the court of law. She is constantly harassed and tormented by the residence of their small town, Maycom. What Lee is trying to show through these events is that people are always going to have prejudices, and sometimes these prejudices come from the people you least expect it form. In the story, neighbors, friends, and family all show their prejudices about the defendant Tom Robinson to Scout, who finally realize the world isn’t perfect but is, in fact, full of flaws and prejudices.

Stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing, plays a big role in “To kill a Mockingbird”, and it’s also a big role in the thirties when everyone was different. In the story there are three different groups of people, the wealthy, the poor, and the black. Each of these group with some exceptions like the Finch family, looks at each other with offset opinions. The stereotyping in this story makes it come true and really plays a big part in character development.

The novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set in a small town called Maycomb in the 1930s. In this novel the people of Maycomb discriminate against people that they have no background information about or people that are different in some way. An innocent black man is convicted of a crime he never commits, a man is stereotyped to be dangerous and scary and there are gender stereotypes.

Today, if one was asked about racism, ageism or stereotypes,  most likely their reaction would be to think about the news reports and stories appearing daily. The issues themselves, however, are not new as shown in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. In the book, the main character Scout retells experiences she had as a child with these same prejudices. Racism, ageism and stereotypes are all significant components in both the novel and modern life.

Women should be caring, humble, quiet, intelligent. These are some of the generic characteristics of a stereotypical "women". If you opened a newspaper from the 1950s you would be bombarded with advertisements about women being the perfect housewives and men being strong leaders. A survey taken in the mid-1980s by British Social Attitudes showed that close to half (43 percent in 1984 and 48 percent in 1987) of people supported a gendered separation of roles, where the female was a caring mother and the male the masculine handyman. If you were to go to any social media site these days, you would see women that are changing the game with twenty-first-century texts posted everywhere that significantly challenging gender stereotypes for women.

The novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee is a simplistic view of life in the Deep South of America in the 1930s. An innocent but humorous stance in the story is through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch. Scout is a young adolescent who is growing up with the controversy that surrounds her fathers lawsuit. Her father, Atticus Finch is a lawyer who is defending a black man, Tom Robinson, with the charge of raping a white girl. The lives of the characters are changed by racism and this is the force that develops during the course of the narrative.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel that nearly every student has read in high school. The book takes place in Alabama during the early 1930s. Young Scout Finch tells a story, from her point of view, of the arrest and trial of Tom Robinson. Tom was accused of the rape of Mayella Ewell, a girl who assumably suffers abuse from her father. He was convicted despite the lack of evidence against him. While this novel’s main theme is racial injustice, it also includes gender role stereotypes. It is clearly seen that throughout the novel Scout is being harassed for not being feminine enough by members of her family and her peers. This gender stereotyping can have a negative or positive effects not only on Scout but other members of society