A Study of Prejudice in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ By Harper Lee
There is a variety of prejudice in the novel, however it all stems back to the mockingbird motif. Chapter ten is the first mention of the mockingbird. Atticus tells the children ‘it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’ Atticus is aware the children will shoot birds with their new air rifles, although he would rather they didn’t. He instructs them not to kill mockingbirds because they are symbols of innocence and harmlessness. They are symbols of innocence and harmlessness, just as Tom Robinson was, when he was shot.
The mockingbird also symbolises a world, which is free from fear or evil, just like the world in which Tom Robinson and Boo Radley sought to live in. The reference to mockingbirds in chapter twenty-four focuses our attention on Tom Robinson as the central ‘mockingbird’ figure. Tom is presented as an innocent, good character. Not only does he not do any harm, he demonstrates positive virtues of kindness, compassion, and generosity. Tom’s life and actions are a natural, spontaneous expression of his humanity and decency just as the mockingbird sings its heart out naturally. As people thoughtlessly slaughtered Tom, they too slaughtered the mockingbird.
The white and black communities are divided by deep-rooted fear and mistrust. Poor white people, who would never have owned slaves before the civil war, were particularly resentful of the newly free blacks, seeing them as a potential threat to their security. We see this in the bitter hatred expressed by Bob Ewell and by the lynch mob who set out to kill Tom Robinson. The trial of Tom Robinson revealed the depths of the prejudice, which believed that black people were essentially inferior. Tom was clearly innocent of raping Mayella Ewell, but by his own admission was guilty of daring to feel sorry for a white woman. The white folk could not have accepted such a presumption. The tension surrounding the trial built up as the men warned Atticus that there might be trouble from the ‘Old Sarum bunch.’ You could sense the ugliness in the racial tension, which threatened Tom’s safety even before he came to the trial. Atticus’s speech reflected the heart of the novel. He presented the evidence for Tom’s innocence clearly and expressively. He made the jury face their prejudice, the unfathomable, evil assumption that all Negroes are untrustworthy and that a white persons word should always be accepted over a blacks persons.
