Tom Robinson Bias

Today’s society is damaged with the results of people doing terrible things to each other. Peoples actions can make or break lives.The novel To Kill A Mockingbird, is about a little girl, her Brother, their Dad, and the negro they all fight to defend. The main character scout and her older brother Jem, get into all sorts of dilemmas in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. As they learn new valuable lessons about life, they also pick up that the small town they grow up in is not as clean and safe as it seems. The father, Atticus Finch is a kind hearted soul who was given the case of Tom Robinson, a negro accused of Raping a white woman. As soon as Atticus was given the case he aimed to defend Tom but a faulty jury made sure it did not happen.To

How would you react if you were falsely accused of a crime when all of your life you had been a good man. However, the catch was you were African American.  A white man’s word against your own. What would be running through your mind? This is exactly the kind of question that was running through Tom Robinson’s mind in this novel. During the 1930s, discrimination against targeted groups of society was prevalent, but small victories occurred to combat this issue in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. From Tom Robinson’s trial, to various stereotypes being broken, and the incidents that took place in Calpurnia’s church for colored people. All of these factors contribute to the purpose behind this novel’s meaning.

The whole town of Maycomb is racist, which makes Atticus’s job harder trying to defend Tom Robinson against the word of a white man.Tom Robinson’s case is unjust since he is black and the majority of Maycomb revert to the stereotype that all blacks are immoral and criminals. “Quote” shows that it is a situation where little is possible to do when defending a black man because the town of Maycomb is deeply affected by racism they tend to only make decisions based on the race and so immediately think Tom Robinson is guilty, that he did indeed raped Mayella when there was so much evidence to prove otherwise. This is challenging for Atticus, since he has to persuade everyone to pretend there is no stereotype about blacks and that they are human

Jem asked Atticus how the jury could convict Tom Robinson when he was obviously and undeniably innocent, Atticus retorts with,”I don’t know but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it again tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it-seems only children weep”(213). Unfortunately due to the creed and outlook of the rural community, Tom was convicted due to the reason he was black even though he was proven guiltless. Most if not all the jurists knew Robinson was not guilty, yet convicted him of a crime he didn't commit because the mindset of blacks are bad and whites are good is much more meaningful than law and integrity. Atticus was apprehensive with the case and Harper Lee had him foreshadow the outcome of the trial when he said,” couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells”(88). He is saying that the cards have been stacked against anyone who is defending a black person against a white person in a court case; he realizes he is going to lose the case by default. “ Maycomb’s usual disease”(187) was expected to take Tom Robinson’s life by Atticus and the reader. Although, some people like Atticus and the rest of the Finch family never surrendered to the prejudiced way of thinking that everyone had seemed to adjust

Harper Lee, the writer of To Kill A MockingBird, builds an argument on how the jury in Maycomb court can acquit Tom Robinson, an African American who is the defendant in the court case; he has been accused of raping a white woman. She builds an argument through the character of Atticus. Maycomb is a town with racism and Atticus, a lawyer from Maycomb, defends Tom Robinson in the court. Harper Lee uses convincing elements, clear facts, and she arouses negative feelings from jury to support her argument.

When Harper Lee was writing about the trial of Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” she had a very real case to look to for inspiration. The trial of the Scottsboro Boys was a world renowned case in the 1930’s in which nine black youths were accused of raping to white girls in Alabama. Lee’s novel took this case and created the fictional case of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a lower class white girl in a small town in Alabama during the Depression-era. The Scottsboro trials were the main source of inspiration for Lee’s novel, and although the circumstances of the novel differed from the real-life scandal, the similarities between the two cases are quite abundant.

Undoubtedly, one of the most controversial subjects in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, would be whether or not Atticus Finch should have defended Tom Robinson. However, in order to understand this controversy, a person must first be able to understand Atticus Finch himself. Atticus as a character is a very intellectual person who possesses the fortitude to stand up for whatever he believes is right and will not let other people’s choices affect his own. Furthermore, it is also important to understand that Atticus is not a racist, nor does he approve of the idea that one group of people are better than another based on their appearances in general, and because of this, a person can generalize that Atticus’s characteristic traits are why he did not complain when given the task of defending a black man, Tom Robinson, who had been wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. A man that he, as well as a small group of other people from town, viewed as the picture of innocence. In their eyes, Tom was no more than a mockingbird, “[and mockingbirds] don’t do one thing but make music for [people] to enjoy” (Lee 119). Knowing this, anyone with a reasonably strong sense of what is right and what is wrong can conclude that it does make sense for Atticus Finch to have taken the case due to his belief that it is a sin to kill the innocent as well as his courage that allows him to stay true to his ideas, even though when taking the case, he was inevitably going to be putting his

Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” is set in a small Southern United States community called Maycomb during the Great Depression era. The whole book primarily revolves around segregation and racism and how it relates to Maycomb’s history. It eventually leads to the trial of Tom Robinson where he is accused of beating up and raping Mayella Ewell. Even though it was clear that Tom Robinson did not do anything wrong he was convicted by an all white jury simply because he was black. The trial of Tom Robinson and its verdict shows an example of how segregation in the court system prevents fair trials from occurring.

“To Kill a Mocking Bird” is not only a great book but also a book that portrays a clear and concise message. This book is about the murder, immense persecution, and hatred towards an innocent man, Tom Robinson. This book Written by Harper lee is about a rape case against an African American man during the years of 1932 to 1935 in Maycomb, Alabama. These years were filled with racism, hatred, and segregation. A rape charge against a black man, Tom Robinson, with the victim being a white woman, Mayella Ewell, was ultimately a death sentence during these times no matter the actual truth to the incident or if it even occurred in the first place. This story portrays the truth of racism and the extreme level of tyranny directed towards African Americans. Lee lays out in detail the entirety of Tom Robinson’s case from the

Race is the dominant cause of inequality in To Kill A Mockingbird, thus Maycomb’s views on race heavily influence every aspect of life. Although racial inequality is clearly illustrated in the in the injustice, prejudice, discrimination and antagonism surrounding the Tom Robinson trial, it is also shown more subtly throughout the novel. In chapter 25 Atticus Finch is quoted disclosing that the corrupt justice system is a direct cause of a racist society. “In our courts, when it's a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (Pg 295). To emphasize, on the same occasion Atticus attempts to explain to his children how widely spread racism is, “As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men everyday of your life”

To conclude the novel, “to Kill A Mockingbird”. Despite being published decades ago, still portray various social injustices that occur in today's society. In the novel the black community is treated unfair, as if they are worthless and inhuman. This also happens in the u.s however, not only people of the black community are being target but people of other dark skin races are as wel. Some people cannot afford a lawyer and some aren't granted a fair trial and sometime will get no trial. This happens in the court scene involving tom robinson, even though he had evidence that proved his innocence he was still found guilty all because of his skin color. But the true injustice is the fact that there are laws that are supposed to prevent this unfair judgment in courts but

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee's only novel, is a fictional story of racial oppression, set in Maycomb, A.L. in 1925 to 1935, loosely based on the events of the Scottsboro trials. Unlike the story however, the racial discrimination and oppression in the novel very accurately portrays what it was like in the 1920's and 1930's in the south. Tom Robinson, the black man accused of raping a poor low class white girl of 19, never stood a chance of getting a fair trial. This can be supported by giving examples of racially discriminatory and

In 2010, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that black Americans receive 10% longer sentences than white Americans through the federal system for the same crimes. Published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one of the greatest works of fictional writing in American history. Set in the 1930s in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, this story is about a young girl, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, and her family. Her father, Atticus Finch, is an attorney who has been assigned the job of defending a black man, Tom Robinson, in a trial. Although Tom is innocent, it is hard to get off the hook as a black man in 1930s Alabama. Tom is found guilty after a long and grueling trial. This leaves Scout and her brother, Jem perplexed. They don’t understand how the jury could find an innocent man guilty just because he is a different race. Throughout the book, Scout and Jem have to learn about the racism problem in America, and why it is dividing the country. To Kill a Mockingbird shows that racism has the power to negatively affect a community because it makes good people do bad things, creates hypocrisy, and it creates hatred.

As To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee indicated, the legal system in courtrooms was largely affected by the pervasive racial injustice and stereotyping found in the 1930’s. Set in a small town in Alabama, the novel describes how Atticus Finch, a well-respected lawyer for his integrity and intelligence, was chosen to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who had been accused of raping a young white woman. Despite the overwhelming evidence that had weighed in favor with Tom Robinson, Scout expressed how he was . Moreover, even when Atticus Finch made his final plea that , the failure of the jurors from completing this moral obligation by achieving an impartial verdict was because the jury was not a full representation of Maycomb. Although the novel establishes that the town of Maycomb had women and minorities, the jury itself was monochromatic and was only consisted of twelve white men. It was due to this absence of

A brilliant and talented man, Thomas Jefferson exclaimed, “hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”(Brainyquote 4). Throughout Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, such philosophy of equality in Jefferson's quote is lacking in the town of Maycomb, and because of that it presents the horrible effects of prejudice ideas towards colored people. In Lee’s novel, Social Injustice is addressed when Tom Robinson experience it first-hand of racism, while Scout witnesses hate on the not so wealthy people.