Prejudice Examples In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Examples of Prejudice Prejudice. It’s a word not often used, yet it’s all around us. We see different prejudices every day in our normal lives. We are prejudiced, movies are prejudiced, other people in society, everything. Even in what we read, and learn, there’s prejudice. In english this semester, I have seen many different examples of prejudice in the various units we’ve studied. We read “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “The Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare, and watched Defiance and Schindler’s List. We also had a unit to read a book of our choosing on the Holocaust, and the book I chose was Rose Under Fire. In all these pieces of literature, there are …show more content…
Tom Robinson is tried guilty of a crime he didn’t commit because he’s black, and the Cunninghams are looked down upon because they’re poor. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Aunt Alexandra says: “I’ll tell you why, because he-is-trash, that’s why you can’t play with him”(Lee 22) when Scout inquires why Walter Cunningham cannot come over for dinner. It’s not something that Walter did that gave him this reputation, it’s how he was raised, and how his family has been raised, going back for generations. They’re poor, humble farmers, who keep to themselves, and never take what they can’t return. Good people, but nobody wants to be associated with them because they’re poor. Tom Robinson is accused of rape, and even though he’s obviously not guilty, he’s still convicted because he’s black, and the jury was white. In response, Atticus says “They’ve done it before, and they did it tonight, and they’ll do it again and when they do it- seems that only children weep” (Lee 213) It seems like Scout, Jem, and Dill were the only ones bothered by the terrible conviction, because the whole town is too blindly prejudiced to see that Tom’s not …show more content…
The whole story of the Holocaust is practically dripping with prejudice. This major event in the world’s history was started because of prejudice. Even in To Kill a Mockingbird, when Scout is learning about the Holocaust, her teacher says “ You’ll learn that the Jews have been persecuted since the beginning of history” (Lee, 245). The Holocaust is prejudice against the Jews, disabled, Gypsies, and many other minority groups in Europe at that time, but mainly the Jews. Why? That question has still not really been answered, but the man who started it, Adolf Hitler, had major prejudices against the Jews living in Germany, and spread his anger and prejudice throughout the world, nearly eliminating a huge population of people in Europe. Even within the war that resulted of prejudice, there’s prejudice between the victims. The book Rose Under Fire illustrates some of these prejudices in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Just in her bunk alone, Rozycka, a Polish prisoner, and Irina, a Russian prisoner argue over nationality, and everyone is prejudiced against the German, Anna, who used to work at Ravensbruck before quitting because of the cruelty and harshness of the doctors and administration, and being brought back as a prisoner. The whole situation in Europe during World War II is prejudice, and we should all be glad that it finally
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