Essay On Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

One of the major themes of the novel “To Kill a Mocking Bird” is Racism.

Advice from Atticus allows his children to develop into mature and moral young adults. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 119).  Atticus advises to avoid killing anything that does not cause harm, one of the most crucial aspects in the book. Throughout the book, the mockingbird symbolizes black people that are being blamed for all the white people's problems. A “mockingbird” in this story is Tom Robinson, who plays the colored man, accused of

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel that takes place in Alabama during the Great Depression. It is narrated by the main character who is a little girl named Jean Louise Finch aka “Scout”. Scout has a father named Atticus who is a lawyer and an older brother. The Finch’s are a white family and when Atticus goes to defend a black man, the whole town is shocked.This novel has tons of racism. Racism is an issue that is still current. Large amounts of racism are expressed in the novel still happens today through racial profiling, police brutality, and segregation.

Racism in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee affects the events in the novel by affecting everyone’s judge meant or disrespecting people by their skin color. Racism has a huge role in the book To Kill a Mocking Bird. See I don’t like racism at all and that’s why I’m about to write and tell you the effects racism has in the book.

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird is written by Harper Lee, and throughout her book, she leaves hints of protesting racism through the characters. Characters such as Jem, Calpurnia, and Atticus, disagree with the discrimination revolving in their town of Maycomb. When Atticus takes the rape case against Tom Robinson, a black man, he tries his hardest to get justice for the innocent man. Sadly, he doesn’t get the outcome he hoped for, and neither did his son, Jem. Also, Calpurnia discretely protests the racism by allowing the Finch children to go to church with her. Harper Lee finds a way to insert the protest against racism in a story that revolves around it.

As you have noticed while reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” there is a lot of racism in the novel. It all starts with Atticus being the defense attorney for Tom Robinson. Sense Atticus is defending a black some people decide to call him a “nigger-lover”. People start making fun of his kids. His own family thinks it’s a disgrace to defend a black person.

To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, that offers a view of life through a young girl’s eyes. The novel is focused on two main themes which are racism and discrimination.

Atticus Finch life has been impacted by discrimination when he was fighting the case between Mayella and Tom Robinson. The evidence is found in Chapter 9 on Page 110 which states “‘If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that’s his own business, like Grandma says, so it ain’t your fault. I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family—’”(Lee 110) This means Atticus is open minded and he doesn’t discriminate against anyone. This is no different from when students are at lunch and they let any and everyone sits at the table. Discrimination is something that people use to get back at others but it's no need. If more people were like Atticus the world would be able to process much smoother. You wouldn’t have to be intimidated to go places and get judged.

This is entirely possible- After all, this is a book and the meaning is open to discussion, and opinion really is the final word. But I think that the fact that Tim Johnson dies after Atticus shoots him is a major reason that Tim Johnson isn’t representing racism. Try as he might, Atticus doesn’t change the jury’s mind, and I doubt he ever does in his life. It’s just too hard to change the entire culture and belief of a town, especially when the truth hurts and the belief is easy. So since Atticus defeats the rabid dog but not the racism of the town, I believe that the dog is a symbol of something else.

In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there is a lot of racism. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in Alabama, the narrator is a little girl by the name Jean louise Finch, Her father is Atticus finch and her brother Jem Finch. Scout, Jem and this kid Dill, who they had met, keep bothering their neighbor Boo Radley. They create a little play where they reenact what happened, apparently Boo had stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors. After Atticus finds out what they're doing he tells them to knock it off, then they try to look through his window and while running away Jems pants get stuck in the fence, Jem goes back the next morning and they’re folded up laying over the fence. Other mysterious things happen to the children too. There is a tree by the Radley place and each day while they’re walking home from school, they find stuff in the tree each day. Then one say they walk by the tree and there is cement in the tree hole, where they have been finding the things, they go to their dads court, he is a lawyer and he is a lawyer to a negro and the negro doesn't win and ends up dying when he tries to escape getting out of jail. That makes the kids upset but later on in the story they kids go to a pagent where scout is a ham and when they’re walking back home someone tries to get them a broke jem's arm and Jem goes into a coma and they find out the person who saves them is Boo Radley.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” takes place in a small town called Maycomb in the 1900’s. Racism is quite present in Maycomb, it was shown when a young African American man was put on trial for raping a young white women. This trial was greatly affected by the racism of Maycomb county. The citizens of Maycomb are greatly affected by racism, they judge Atticus because he defends an African American, they vote unfairly because of racism, they judge Mr. Dolphus Raymond for living his life with African Americans. In the trial Tom is found guilty when his argument was clearly honest but still people voted him guilty because of his skin color.

The central idea of the book, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is how the author, Harper Lee(Scout), explains the idiocracy of racism. One it should not exist and two racism is a reality. These two explanations are the exact definition of the famous quote “Do not judge a book by its cover.” Harper Lee made this book to prevent future racism from developing and then eventually ceasing it from existence. Racism develops in a way that Scout, Dill and Jem does not see it coming especially when the trial of two individuals of different color becomes in session.

“Racism is taught in our society; it is not automatic. It is learned behaviour toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics.” (Alex Haley) Racism is not a thing that you are born with, racism is learnt through the language of the society around you. Harper Lee in her book To Kill a Mockingbird explores the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. In this novel, it is exemplified that racism is taught, not inherited. Consequently, Racism is a belief usually involving the fact of that one’s race is more superior and has the right to rule or dominate others. In the novel, it showcases the treatment of Negroes as immoral in comparison to the other race. Therefore, this kind of behaviour will be observed by the children leading them to follow in the footsteps of their parents. They further degrade the Negroes by calling them offensive names, which is considered normal in their society. To sum up this, Atticus is the only one who stands up for Tom Robinson and it is a strong held assumption in the society that he is guilty of raping Mayell Ewell, a white girl, even before there is a trial. Lee in her novel challenges the concept of an abundant explanation of racism, which is taught by the behaviours of the people in your society.

Many of the most important quotes in the book are about justice. “As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life... that white man is trash” (295). Atticus is referring to the impunity granted to white men, and their abuse of this privilege. This is a crucial lesson today, considering the heated debate about police brutality and bias in our justice system. The subject of To Kill A Mockingbird is an unsubstantiated accusation against a black man that resulted in the man being convicted. Ethnic minorities are all too familiar with this tale. The U.S. Sentencing Commission revealed that in the federal system black offenders receive 10% longer sentences than white offenders for the same crimes. According to The Sentencing Project, African American youth are about 16% of the youth population, yet 37% of their cases transferred to criminal court and 58% of black youth are sent to adult prisons. To Kill A Mockingbird shows young readers that bias and racism are never okay, and they can be especially harmful in legal issues. Tom Robinson’s life was taken due to racism in a federal court; many would argue the same for the deaths of Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffin, Leo Jones, and Larry Griffin, only three of the myriad of black men who were sentenced to death and later proven innocent.

Racism is defined as the mistreatment of a group of people on the basis of color, race, religion, or national origin. The term racism can also be used to represent a hatred or prejudice toward another group. The novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, takes place during an extremely racist time in America. Nella Harper Lee wrote this novel to give her readers a harsh sense of the segregation that went on in the south during this time period. Between the years of 1925 and 1935 there were many problems facing the south. The depression brought job and poverty issues to many blacks, which increased the segregation. To Kill A Mockingbird has many parallels between the fictional segregation in the novel and the factual racism