Another individual that has been the victim of prejudice is Atticus Finch. After he was appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl, Atticus received much hate from the town’s inhabitants. Many of them believe that Atticus should not defend a black person, as it breaks the taboo of that time and will bring disgrace upon the Finch family. Atticus disagrees with their opinions though, as he is a strong believer in equal rights for all. He does not care that the rest of the town is not backing him up, as he believes that what he is doing is correct. There are certain characters in the book that have a special dislike for the Atticus is defending Tom Robinson. The first is Mrs Dubose who shouts out to Jem “Your father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for”. This shows that she has a strong dislike of the way Atticus is defending a Negro, and is quite contradictory of herself. She in fact has a young Negro girl that looks after her, and could probably not survive without her. If Mrs Dubose were really against Negroes then she would not have one in her service. Perhaps she feels that she is higher in status than others, which is why she can accuse others while doing the same herself. Another that accuses Atticus of being a ‘Nigger lover’ is Bob Ewell. It is understandable why Bob dislikes Atticus at this time, because he is fighting against him in court. There is also the mob incident, in which Atticus stands guard outside the Maycomb jail that houses Tom Robinson. The jailhouse is described to be “out of place” and “quite unattractive”. This could be to symbolise the ugliness of the matter at hand. A gang of men, including Walter Cunningham, shows up and are only deterred by Scout’s childhood innocence. She makes them see that what they are doing is wrong, although she does not know the real reason they are here. Both Mrs Dubose and Bob Ewell show discrimination and prejudice against Atticus, while the gang discriminate against Tom Robinson however in doing so, indirectly discriminate Atticus. Atticus had integrity that gave him the strength to endure the ridicule that arose from his decision to defend a black man, in such a segregated area.
Some who are discriminated against are those who are born differently to the majority, in this case a black person amongst white people. One person that is treated unfairly is Calpurnia, as you can see when Aunt Alexandra tried to get Atticus to fire Calpurnia, because in her eyes, Calpurnia was not a good enough female role model for the children. This is a prejudice action, because Calpurnia is as good a role model as Aunt Alexandra, if not better. She would not give Scout and Jem prejudice views on different parts of society, but a fair viewpoint on all matters. Aunt Alexandra is a bigot and doesn’t see the character of Calpurnia, just the colour of her skin. Calpurnia has been with the children since they were very young, so knows them a lot better than Aunt Alexandra does.
A different sort of racism arises when Calpurnia takes the Finch children to her local, Black community church. Instead of the usual racist remarks against black people, it is the other way around and the Finch children are being prejudiced against. It is not the whole of the black community however that is being prejudice against them, just one Negro woman named Lula. The rest of the Negroes show respect to Scout and Jem, but she wants to know why Calpurnia is “bringin’ white chillun to nigger church”. She obvious has very stereotypical views of white people, so much that they are extended to the white children. The Finch children now know what the Negroes have to deal with every day, and it gives them a new perspective on how to treat people.
Another strong form of prejudice that has been shown throughout the years is sexism. For many years’ men felt they had power over women, and exerted it. It is also shown in this book, firstly by Atticus. He says, “Miss Maudie cannot serve on the jury because she is a woman”. This just shows that in the era this book was set in, the 1930’s, there was still much discrimination against women. Atticus did not think it fit for a woman to serve as part of the jury, and they were not allowed so that Maycomb could “…protect our frail ladies”. This is sending across the image that women do not have nearly as much courage as men. Jem also shows faint sexism by saying to Scout that she is “just a girl”. He wouldn’t allow her to join in with his and Dill’s games, because he thought Scout would be unable to play, just for being a girl. This is very stereotypical as Jem just assumes that because Scout is a girl, she will not want to join in their games or cannot because of her gender. Scout also displays signs of being sexist when she stays with Aunt Alexandra and her cousin Francis. Francis tells her that “Grandma’s a wonderful cook…she’s going to teach me how”. Scout responds with a very sexist comment “Boys don’t cook”. This just shows the way in which she has been brought up; to believe that it is a woman’s job to stay in the kitchen and cook, while the man goes out and works. She is being prejudice towards Francis as she doesn’t think he should start cooking, as it is supposedly only for girls.
Another group that is treated poorly in society based on bigotry are the people that chose to be different, such as Dolphus Raymond. He married a black woman and together they had children, something unheard of in that day and age. He pretended to be drunk so no one gave him any trouble on the way he lived his life. The way a person lives their life should be their own personal business. He has the right to live differently to everybody else, if he feels that is the way he wants to live. The town’s people just assume that he is a drunk, and that the bottle kept in his bag is whisky when in fact it is merely coca cola. They came to their own assumptions about his life, and talked about him behind his back. This is a form of prejudice against Dolphus Raymond
Religious prejudice is also featured within the novel, although it is not a key topic. You see this particular type of prejudice being used against Miss Maudie, by the Foot – Washing Baptists. We are told that she is a Baptist too, however not to the extreme of the Foot – Washing Baptists. Miss Maudie tells Jem, Scout and Dill how they once passed her by and said that her and her flowers were going to rot in hell, (said because they thought anything pleasurable was a sin and Miss Maudie loved her flowers). They thought she should spend less time outdoors, and more time indoors reading the bible. Just because she didn’t have the same beliefs as them, they used that against her to say that she was a bad person. Sexism is also pulled into this debate, because we are told that Foot – Washing Baptists think all women are a sin.
Aunt Alexandra is one who is very set in her ways and beliefs, and will probably never change them. She has very strong feelings towards certain subjects, such as Scout and the fact that Atticus is defending a Negro. Francis also has views upon Atticus defending Robinson, however these are probably not his own views, just ones he has heard and copied from his Grandma. He says to Scout that “Uncle Atticus is a nigger lover…it certainly does mortify the rest of the family”. He is perhaps saying what the rest of the Finch family feels; that Atticus has let them down and given the Finch family a bad name. Aunt Alexandra feels that Scout should dress and act like a proper lady which she “could not possibly hope to do of I wore breaches”. This just shows that Aunt Alexandra is still a firm believer in girls wearing dresses and acting nicely, with no room for deviation. She tells Scout that she “wasn’t supposed to be doing anything that required pants”. This backs up my point that Aunt Alexandra wants Scout to behave like a lady, and become a “proper woman” when she grows up. This reinstates the point that she is very old fashioned in her beliefs.
Another example of racism is when Jem, Scout and Dill go to explore the exterior of the Radley household at night. While Jem is at one of the windows a shadow passes over him, which disappears around the side of the house. As the three children are running away they hear a shotgun being fired. Without turning back they run home, where they see the neighbours are standing outside the Radley place. Nathan Radley is telling them that he shot at a “nigger”, even though he couldn’t be sure it was, which it obviously wasn’t. This just shows that if any mishap or wrongdoing occurs, the Negroes are immediately blamed. Nathan Radley wouldn’t have known if it was a white or black person, so he came to his own conclusion. The rest of the neighbourhood believed him, because they too are prejudice against the Negroes.
The court case is one of the main parts to the book, and involves many of the already mentioned prejudices. The main one is of course racism against the black man, Tom Robinson. He has been accused of raping Mayella Ewell. As I mentioned earlier, the Ewells are thought of as the “trash” of Maycomb, yet they still have power over Tom Robinson who is a respectable and well doing black man. When the trial begins, everyone already knows what the outcome will be, which just goes to show what everyone thinks of the black community; worse than trash. The prosecution in the trial is very harsh, and although the trial goes on, everyone knows that the verdict will be guilty. Tom Robinson has been discriminated by a biased community, a community of Negro haters. Tom is found guilty, even though the evidence given proves him to be innocent. Tom was never given a fair chance in the trial. The guilty verdict is the result of a racist community.
As I have said, prejudice is a key factor in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. It sets storylines, gives people different opinions and makes people biased towards different issues. It just shows how life was in the 1930’s, and the way that race, sex, class and religious prejudice has changed over the years. People were scared to voice their opinions, afraid of what the community might say if they did. If this had been changed and people weren’t so biased that maybe that innocent man would have lived, and people would not have been so discriminative to one another.
