The reader might consider that this doesn’t show prejudice, but we see that throughout the novel Bob Ewell hates the unprejudice white people like Atticus. We see later on in the book that Tom Robinson is probably innocent and falsely accused. Because of Mr Ewell accusing Tom and causing his conviction, this eventually brings about the death of Tom.
The black community is presented throughout the story in a very positive light. The Finch’s maid is a loving, tender-hearted woman, who cares for Jem and Scout, bringing them up as if they were her own children, disciplining them at appropriate times, and giving them a mother’s love. Tom Robinson is a very hard-working family man, praised by his employer, that “That boy’s worked for me for eight years and I ain’t had a speck o’ trouble outa him. Not a speck”. His kindness is shown in his feelings for Mayella Ewell, he felt “right sorry for her.” After the trial, when Calpurnia brings Atticus into the kitchen the next morning, “the kitchen table was loaded with enough food to bury the family”, brought by the black community, because “they ‘preciate what you did, Mr Finch.”
Gender prejudice is focused on in this book a great deal less than racial prejudice. Gender prejudice is defined as “attributing certain characteristics to one sex or other which is not based on reason or experience.” “Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things.”
We see that women were treated more as servants and maids than as wives and helpers in the 1930’s. They were not allowed to sit on a jury because they were considered too frail. At the beginning of the book, Scout relates, “I sat at the little table in the dining room; Jem and Francis sat with the adults at the dinning table.”
Scout feels that Aunty dislikes her because she isn’t enough of a lady. We believe Scout’s aunt is unreasonable in her demand on her to sit alone, because at such a young age it is abnormal for a young girl to sit still and try to be a lady. Throughout the novel, Scout is constantly embarrassed by, or embarrasses her aunty because of her continuous tom-boy attitude.
The second strongest discrimination that is shown in this story is the social prejudice of Maycomb County. The Ewells are perceived as low down people, because they are poor and dirty and never going to school. They are despised by the middle class almost as much as blacks of Maycomb. Another poor family that is depicted, is the Cunningham’s. When Walter Cunningham comes over for dinner, he “poured syrup on his vegetables, and meat…and probably would have poured it into his milk glass if (Scout) hadn’t asked him what the sam hill he was doing.” The book displays the Cunningham’s as honest and upright people, “they never took anything they couldn’t pay back” but because of their poverty they are looked down upon in the society. One of the Cunningham’s sat on the jury during Tom Robinson’s trial, “in the beginning he was rarin’ for an outright acquittal.”
The Radley’s, Jem and Scout’s next door neighbour, have a son named Arthur Radley but all the children in the neighbourhood call him Boo. There is social prejudice shown here, in that he is not accepted because he is different from most people. The reason the children call him Boo is because for years time no one had seen him and the kids imagined him to be a ghost. There was a incident when Boo was thirty years of age he stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors. Boo was imprisoned in the basement of the county jail until one day his father took him home and he was never seen again. “Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom… Any stealthy crimes committed in Maycomb were his work.” The pecans from the Radley tree fall into the school yard, but they lay untouched because “Radley pecans would kill you…folks say he pizened ‘em and put ‘em over on the school side of the fence.”
This shows how intolerant the county is against Boo, just for one crime he is sent to jail and is never seen again after his father takes him home. No one really knows Boo Radley but he is suspected by all that he is a crook and a killer. This is displayed, one September afternoon, Scout nearly smashes a roly-poly but is stopped by her brother. She asks, “Why couldn’t I mash him?” Jem says, “Because they don’t bother you.” Jem is learning to empathize with others, including Boo.
“You can shoot all the blue jays you want, but it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Atticus told the children when they received air rifles. Miss Maudie explained “Your father is right, mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That is way it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Mockingbirds here symbolize both Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. These two persons are harmless to society, yet because of the time and age, they are looked down upon and despised. This is the real sin, because they are not only harmless, but defenceless.
Religious prejudice plays a small part in the book, when Cal, the family’s black maid, took the children to a black church named First Purchase African M.E. Church. There was a big, tall Black woman called Lula and she objected to Cal bringing Scout and Jem to the black church. Lula “wants to know why you bringin’ white chillum to a nigger church.”
This shows that the churches are segregated from each other, and that the Black church does not accept white people and the white church does not accept the Black people. We see later on that the children are asked to stay; this is because their father Atticus is not prejudiced and is defending Tom Robinson.
The discrimination and intolerance that Harper Lee is really trying to expose is racial prejudice. This book has caused millions of people to consider the effect that racial prejudice really has. Tom Robinson is killed trying to escape from jail, because although Atticus proved that he was innocent, the jury still convicted him. The story ends with Boo finally coming out of his house, to save Jem and Scout from Mr Ewell, who tries to kill them, showing the children that the way that had imagined Boo was wrong. Over-all, this book teaches everyone something important about prejudice and how to live in the world today.
