Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Prejudice is described as a “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.” Webster’s Rotary Canadian Dictionary & Thesaurus. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates the horrendous impact that prejudice has on specific characters including Atticus Finch, Arthur “Boo” Radley, and Thomas Robinson. To begin, the unpleasant outcome of prejudice is indicated through Atticus Finch. Majority of Jem and Scout’s classmates have fathers that are youthful and are capable of doing certain things their father cannot do, due to his age: “He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, “my father-”” (Lee 118). This …show more content…
Boo Radley is portrayed as a “malevolent phantom” (10) by the people of Maycomb for informally stabbing his father in the leg with a pair of scissors, while he was cutting out articles for his scrapbook. In spite the fact that this is an unpleasant thing to do, nobody truly knows whether there was a rationale behind his actions. The townspeople of Maycomb are not giving him an opportunity to show how kind he truly is. Another event of prejudice towards Arthur Radley is among Jem, Scout, and Dill. The three of them start playing a new game that includes the dramatization of showcasing the Radley family life. The play closes with Jem, who plays Boo Radley, cutting his father who is played by Dill, in the leg. This scene id an example of prejudice because of the fact that they are just carrying out what they have overheard in people’s conversations, and not seeing what actually happened. Their game suddenly ends when Atticus sees what they are doing and asks them if their game had “anything to do with the Radleys” (53). The last event of prejudice is about gossip encompassing Boo Radley and what he probably does during the night, for example, eating …show more content…
A little bit into the book, we figure out that Tom Robinson has been blamed for assaulting Mayella Ewell, daughter of Bob Ewell: “I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin' on my Mayella!” (231). Despite the fact that Mr. Ewell knows that this is not genuine, he does his absolute best to sound persuading, and that he saw Tom assaulting Mayella. With almost everyone in Maycomb watching the trial, including Scout and Jem, Atticus states facts that are so convincing of the innocence of Thomas Robinson. Unfortunately, the jury is compromising of just white people, who accept that a black man has done it without considering any certainties put before them. The last instance of prejudice is when Scout attempts to comfort Dill after he hears how frightfully Tom is dealt with by Mr. Gilmer while Tom is on the stand: “Well Dill, after all he’s simply a Negro” (266). In Maycomb, individuals are treated diversely based on their race and financial

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