Atticus Finch the most famous lawyer in Maymcomb county who is highly respected and honoured in the community is a victim of prejudice and suffered many vigorous consequences. As the residents of Maycomb got informed about how Atticus was dedicated in freeing tom robinson, they lost respect for him and started bad mouthing him calling him a nigger lover. A simple act of prejudice like that can have such an impact on people. The penalty that Atticus suffered for this act of kindness that came from the bottom of his heart resulted in a fierce act of hatred. Atticus stood his ground and retained his faith in equality for all and didn’t let any of the bad gossip going around town affect him in any way.
The death of Bob Ewell can also be considered as a negative consequence of prejudice. Mr. Ewell was the one who blamed the Tom Robinson at first, he was the spark that lit the fire. Mr. Ewell was not respected in the town and he got even more embarrassed in the trial due to atticuss is confronting. Mr. Ewell wanted to get baclk at Atticus so he decided to go after his children.
In To Kill a mocking bird, Lee depicts the ways of how prejudice is demonstrated based on discrimination by gender, age and skin colour. These different types of prejudice are all commited in the book and show how prejudice is an awful way of judging people.
All men and women are created equal and have the same rights. Prejudice against gender lurks in the city of Macomb. Mrs. Maudie experiences this unfairness in the novel due to the fact that she is a woman. “Miss Maudie can’t be on a jury because she’s a woman”(Lee 221) is a fact that cannot be contradicted in Maycomb County. The prejudice is against women. Townsmen think that women are frail and emotional so they will not be able to witness such intense trials. It takes a man to be on a jury is a common belief by most of the townspeople. This belief should be eliminated because this is not true and if a woman wants to be on a jury and she qualifies then she deserves a spot ion the jury. Men and woman should have equal opportunities and should have the same rights.
It is not only adult that commit prejudice, Harper Lee shows us that children also innocently follow the footsteps of the wicked and learn bad manners. Dill, Scout and Jem all assume that Boo is crazy and that he eats squirrels based on the fact that he doesn’t come out of his house. “When people azaleas froze it was because he had breathed on them” (Lee 9) is an example of a stereotype towards Boo by the kids.
Harper Lee wrote the book To Kill a Mockingbird in a ways that she exposes us to all the prejudice and the she takes us to the root of the problem and shows us how prejudice is eliminated in the small town of Maycomb.
Atticus is a lawyer and he is the main character who is trying to eliminate prejudice.
“the assumption – the evil assumption – that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.” This saying was claimed by Atticus to all the jury during the trial. The reader already knows that tehjury is in favour of the white which in this case would be the Ewells. What atticus is trying to do is that he is convincing the jury that all men are created equal and that why should we discrimate people that are different? In other words Atticus is doing his best in eliminating the prejudice that lies in the hearts of the members of the jury.
Miss Maudie is another character in the novel that believes in equality. “I have no reason with court this morning”(Lee 159) would be a saying that people would say if they indeed knew that the trial was unfair and that they were disgusted from all the prejudice. Th reader now ponders that more and more characters are being freed from the evils of prejudice and they have begun to understand the wrongful of prejudice. This is a sign to the reader that more characters are eventually going switch over to the good side and that is xactly what happens.
Jem and Scout are both children and their minds have not fully developed yet and we cannot give them the 100% guilt to them for being a little prejudice towards others. Nevertheless the children also manage to overcome prejudice. “We never put back into the tree what we took out of it; we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.” (Lee 278) The children realized the wrongfulness of assuming that Boo Radley was crazy. Scout now realizes that Boo is a human just like anyone of us and we should all be treated equally. “It is a sin to kill a mockingbird” is a lesson that Scout has learned from her dad. She realized that Boo was represented by a mockingbird and she was the so called hunter. Now Scout has grown and matured and she followed after the footsteps of her dad and manged to get rid of the evil assumptions towards Boo Radley.
Harper Lee through the portrayal of these major characters has shown us how they realized that prejudice in Maycomb she not be existed and they all manage to isolate prejudice from their lives and eliminate it in an understanding manner.
