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To Kill A Mockingbird Social Equality Analysis

Decent Essays

In Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee was born in 1926, and modeled her Maycomb after the town. The culture of the people, the social dynamic, was modeled after that of her own home town. Even the trial of Tom Robinson was based off of a trial on the rape of two white women by nine black men, that occurred in Scottsboro when Lee was five years old. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird is an example of social inequality between races, as the author uses the trial of Tom Robinson to convey her support of equality.
There is a clear prejudice against African Americans throughout To Kill a Mockingbird. There is a cultural mindset that the community shares that those of colored skin, are “immoral beings, and the Negro men cannot be trusted around our women.” The white man’s opinions, words, and actions, are valued over the black man’s. In the complicated social hierarchy of Maycomb, where the Finch’s are at the top, the black community is at the bottom, below even the disrespectable Ewell’s, despite their admirable qualities. The rigid social format confuses Scout, as she doesn’t understand why Aunt Alexandra won’t allow her to play with Walter Cunningham, a poor boy. The author uses this to deplore the far too relevant role of social status and prejudice in social interaction.
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In this case, two white women accused nine black men of raping them. Despite the fact that a doctor examined the women and found no evidence of intercourse or any struggle, eight of the nine men were sentenced to death. “A white man’s word, against a black man’s word, the white man always wins.” During a second trial one of the women admitted that she and the other woman had not been raped by any of the men, yet the same eight were convicted. The deep-rooted prejudice against the black men is what sent them to jail for many years of their

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