Another way that Harper Lee includes prejudice into ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is with Calpurnia and her background, when she takes Jem and Scout to church with her on page 125, her voice changes to fit in and Jem and Scout note the fact that black churches are a lot different to white ones and that the attitudes of the people are different. They notice that there are not many posters and there are no hymn books this is very interesting to Jem and Scout as they really see how the black people live. This does not only teach Jem and Scout about the conditions of black peoples lives in America in the 1930’s but it also teaches the reader about them too. They also notice that Calpurnia’s voice changes when she’s talking to all of the other people at her church, very similar to their voices, this is shown when Scout notices that her voice was ‘strange’ and that she was ‘talking like the rest of them’ in the 8th line of page 125 this shows how people have to change to fit in their community Calpurnia has to make her voice sound ‘normal’ and like everyone else in the Finches community around Maycomb but when she goes to her Church in their community her voice is as it should be. Scout also notices that there are no hymn books in Calpurnia’s church and tries asking her about it on page 126, “Cal”, “where are all the hymn books?”, and Calpurnia replies “We don’t have any” and Scout tries to ask how they sing etc, but is cut off by Calpurnia, this shows how people in black churches have to cope with not having any hymn books etc, this is another way of Harper Lee showing how racism affects more than just how black people are treated, it also shows that it has an effect on how much money they have to spend even on church decorations and hymn books.
I believe that the Ewells are the main ‘Prejudice family’ in the book as they are most likely to be the ‘most racist’ family in the book e.g. Mr Ewell is very adamant that Tom Robinson has raped his daughter just because he is black and because Mr Ewell is white he knows that he’s got a high chance of being believed more over a black man just because of the society in that time. Whereas Atticus is much less prejudiced and he passes this quality onto Scout and Jem unlike Mr Ewell, Atticus uses reasoning and explains to Scout and Jem why he has an opinion or why someone is not liked or why they are discriminated against in the community but Mr Ewell doesn’t tell Mayella why he doesn’t like someone or any of his reasons for being racist. Mr Ewell displays an act of great racist acts when he takes out his anger on Atticus because he is defending Tom Robinson, on page 223 Jem and Scout are informed of an incident by Miss Crawford of how Mr Ewell Spat at Atticus in the face and called him terrible names including a ‘nigger lover’ he also threatens to kill Atticus which shows how much Mr Ewell despises black people just because of their race and he takes this out on Atticus.
Another main part of prejudice in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is scout, not that she displays a lot of prejudice in her personality or in herself but that she doesn’t, unlike Mayella Ewell she has not been raised as a child with vast amounts of prejudice being displayed around her, instead Atticus taught her right and wrong and that being prejudice is wrong and why it is. He also taught her not to judge people by appearance or by rumours that have gone around about them. Mayella however had been raised by Mr Ewell who was displaying a lot of racism and prejudice in front of her so she does not know that this is a wrong thing to do. One, main part in this is where she has a fight with Francis on page 89 because Francis calls Atticus a ‘Nigger-Lover’, this shows that although Scout gets into a fight about it, she doesn’t actually display any prejudice to anyone because Atticus has taught her not to and shown her that it is wrong.
The night at the jail house where Atticus is protecting Tom Robinson is one of the main sections of the book where a whole group of people from the community display an act of racism, on pages 158-159 where Jem and Scout go to the jail house where Atticus is sat and Scout meets Mr Cunningham, this shows how Scout does not understand what is happening with the racism and the “Ganging up” on Atticus to get to Tom. This part also shows how so many people would do something that they would not normally do because of peer pressure and because so many people are doing it this clouds your judgement. An example of a person like this is Mr Cunningham, he does not respond to Scout because he knows that he is doing something that isn’t right. This shows that racism can spread throughout the community very easily when a lot of people get together, particularly men. Also it means that Harper Lee wanted to describe many different morals in the book, prejudgement, racism, peer pressure etc.
Boo Radley is also another person who has a lot of racism shown against because people don’t know him and bases their judgements on him with rumours they hear. For example Miss Stephanie Crawford tells Jem all about Boo which also means that she could have told other people who would judge him on what she tells them. On page 17 Miss Stephanie Crawford tells
Jem that Boo “drove a pair of scissors into his parents leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities” which leads people to believe things about Boo.
In conclusion Harper Lee wrote a lot of morals into the book including Prejudice, Racism and Peer pressure to teach people about common life in the 1930’s and the life of black people in these times. She also uses different methods of teaching in the book, with Atticus teaching Scout about racism in the community, with acts of racism being displayed against Tom Robinson and also Atticus being spat at for defending a black man, these different ways of showing the ways in which people can be discriminated against and showing how life was in the 1930’s make the book a good way of learning about everyday life in a community with racist people(Mr Ewell), people easily lead by peer pressure (Mr Cunningham) and also people who don’t agree with racism and who are against it (Atticus).