To Kill A Mockingbird Discrimination Analysis

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Discrimination, Like a Killing Drug
Discrimination, like a drug, has existed in the human brain for generations. It eats away your senses and the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Whether it’d be in a small society or the world-wide global scale, discrimination has evolved into many forms. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, there are many forms of discrimination portrayed through the actions and behaviors of the characters in Maycomb. Maycomb is a diverse town with different personalities, with a multitude of people having the usual disease, racism. Throughout the book, Jem and Scout go through different events that expose their pure and “non-infected” minds to the town’s different forms of discrimination. Tom Robinson’s court …show more content…
People are judged on how wealthy they are and economic classes are set up based on how rich they are. This just enhances the separation between the people in Maycomb, while encouraging discrimination. In the beginning of the novel Scout sees herself as superior to Walter Cunningham because his family is poor and can’t pay back in cash. She refers to him as “just a Cunningham” (Lee 33). When Scout puts the ‘just’, she is implying that Walter is not worthy of her respect since he is of such low standard. She separates the classes between her and Walter just because Walter is a ‘Cunningham’, whose poverty happens to range back to their distant ancestors. Scout then says, "'But I want to play with Walter, Aunty, why can't I?' She took off her glasses and stared at me. 'I'll tell you why' she said. 'Because-he-is-trash, that's why you can't play with him I'll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what” (Lee 301). Her Aunt also makes it clear that Walter is of low standards and does not match with the Finch status. The Finch family is more wealthy than the Cunninghams and that's one of the reasons why Aunt doesn’t want Scout to play with Walter. The town's people are more respected and on a higher social class than a farmer because of their wealth and occupation. Even though both the farmers and townspeople work equally as hard and are both probably very respectable people, …show more content…
Even though the book was written in the 1930’s and is true account of the author’s own life, not much has changed much today in 2016. There is still discrimination towards different people whether it’s based on race, gender, economic status, or even one’s family background. This problem hasn’t been lessened in intensity but has grown even more to eat the world with it’s
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