White People In Maycomb example essay topic

Literary Analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout was exposed numerous times to the outwardly prejudice people of Maycomb Co., Alabama. These prejudices are separated into what I would consider three catagories: race, sex, and lifestyle discriminations. The most prominent being the racial discrimination, which as Harper Lee pointed out, was not just limited to the cacausion population of Maycomb. One of these instances was when Lula commented on Finch children coming to a historically all black church.

Another less prominent form of this reverse discrimination would be the fact that the african people of Maycomb tended to assume that all white people in Maycomb had a deep hatred for blacks, and so they also treated all of them as prejudiced people. But, the black population, by far was discriminated against the most. For instance the many times Scout was told her father defined niggers, and was a nigger lover. One of these times would be when Francais states, I guess it aint your fault if Uncle Atticus is nigger lover (83). And although Scout didnt truly know the meanings of these statements seemingly rooted into the core of many Maycomb popula nts, she did sense that they were not statements of revere ment. Another type of prejudice in the book would be the sexism and resulting stereotypical views of how women and men should act, dress, and what they can and cannot do.

A good example of this being the many times Mrs. Dubose made statements like, What are you doing in overalls. If you dont start acting proper you will end up serving tables (101). What I would consider to be vast majority of this sexism was aimed at women and girls. They were constantly told what was proper and lady-like and what the should dress like to look like a lady. These so called ideals were not only reinforced and tought by men but also by women. Scout was one of the minority of people who didnt conform to these ideals and was therefore ridiculed by the less enlighten people of Maycomb.

The third and final form of prejudice is actually a combination of the other two types of prejudice. This prejudice being discrimination against non-conforming lifestyles. A good example of this would be Mr. Dol pus who hung around with black people and was considered a drunk by the townspeople. He was apparently called trash by the townspeople as this this quote from Dill suggests, He doesnt look like trash (160).

I consider the main cause of this lifestyle discrimination to be the many other separate prejudices rolled into one and applied to how people should live and act. Such as the fact that whites werent supposed to mingle with the black people and people arent supposed to drink to much, or at least not while under the public eye. Scout was also subject to this type of prejudice because of the fact that her father was defending, and therefore mingling, with a black person. I believe that without such controversial issues the story would have not truely achieved the level of realistic ity and validity that Harper Lee was able reach. And also without them we would have been unable to see who was truly a good at heart character and who was a low life.