Discrimination In Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

Elizabeth Estes
LITR240-1202A-09
Phase 5 IP Final IP

The Harper Lee novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” demonstrates many different types of discrimination and relates to the reader how easily people adapt to social discriminations. In the beginning of the story Atticus Finch has two children who are without their mother due to being deceased. A small boy by the name of Dill shows up and becomes friends with the two children. Immediately the youngest of the children, Scout Finch starts to ask questions about her new friend’s family. Scout wants to know what happened to this boy’s father and why does Dill not know where he is. Dill’s father is the president of a railroad and therefore never around. Scout has evidently shown signs of being sheltered.
The only way a mom and dad were not supposed to be together was due to death. This I felt was the first small sign of discrimination inside the children. These children did not know any better this is how the children had been taught. Harper makes a point by having the children discuss death. In a statement that reads, “You mean when someone is dying you can smell it?” Dill mentions how and older lady taught him that. Harper makes the reader realize how much children are easily influenced. Children take what older people say and make it as good as law, Harper makes this clear in her story to the readers. Jem Finch who was the oldest of Atticus’ children told the story to Dill and Scout about Mr. Bo Radley and the Radley house. This was another form of discrimination, disability discrimination. Bo Radley was not like normal children growing up. Bo Radley was not like normal young adults. Bo Radley was mentally handicapped and learned slower than others. Harper also uses different ways to let the reader connect to the difference in the thought process of Bo Radley rather than the normal thought process made by Atticus’ children. The statement, “Don’t you know you are not supposed to touch the trees over there? You’ll get killed if you do!” Harper developed the discrimination between the children and that Radley house very easily with statements made like these. Children grew up telling stories of the Radley house due to lack of interaction with the Radley’s. Children are the easiest people to influence within a community. Since the Radley’s seemed so secretive and reserved people within the community thought they were weird. Bo secretly went to a tree to place objects inside for the children to get. This was a form of communication for Bo; Jem thought it was strange to find these objects inside a tree. One day Jem found two statues of a girl and a boy that represented Scout and himself. Mr. Radley came and filled the hole in with some kind of material so that nothing else could be placed inside. To me this was so that no more communication with these children could be made this way. I figure Mr. Radley thought someone might think of his son in the wrong way, surprisingly they already had. The day finally came when Atticus decided to take on a criminal case that involved a black man accused of raping a white woman. Atticus was approached the victim’s father trying to assure himself that Atticus was not intending on representing this colored man. The victim’s father Bob Ewell thought that because he was prejudice that everyone in the community was prejudice. Atticus was an honest and equal man, he never even mentioned to his own children the type of case he was about to argue. The children were ridiculed at school for their father’s decision to represent this colored man. The other children would taunt the kids about their father representing a black man. It almost seemed like the idea of a black person even making it to a court trial was unheard of. All colored people were guilty and killed for committing crimes it seemed. Scout was a very defensive little girl who stood up for her father, Atticus. Scout would get into fights at school over what her father was doing. Scout was a feisty little girl who did not mind telling it like it is. Later that afternoon Scout waited for Atticus to come home to confront him about the accusations that had been made. Scout stated that evening, “Do you defend niggers Atticus? Atticus had to explain to Scout the reason why he was representing a black man. So somewhere Scout believed that representing black people was unacceptable, as if white people could not work for colored people. Atticus also gets onto Scout for saying the word nigger and asks her not too. Scout’s reply was, “That’s common. ‘S what everybody at school says.” Harper tells a vivid story by allowing the reader to visualize what these children are really going through. Trial would be another discriminating factor that Harper Lee keeps me on edge throughout the novel. A very detailed story is told by the victim Mayella on the stand so that the reader could identify with her. The victim’s father even told of horrible details and memories of this crime. The local sheriff takes the stand and recalls the day of the crime and gives details. The sheriff only took the victim’s father’s word on the crime and who the aggressor was. There was no evidence taken, no doctor statements, simply the fact a black man did it had been sufficient. Atticus worked hard on this case and put the facts out there for everyone to see. Atticus also made Mayella admit to falsely accusing Mr. Robinson of this crime. She also falsely reported a crime at all. Because the jury was prejudice they convicted a man that could not have physically committed the crime and done absolutely nothing to Mayella for perjury. I almost forgot about the escorting of the inmate Mr.
Robinson. The sheriff called Atticus to inform him that the inmate was about to be transferred for trial and that he needed his help to protect him. You do not hear about things like this these days, if someone gets transported you will never know until they get there. The police will not call your attorney and say come protect your client until trial either. That is exactly what happened to Atticus, he was told to come help guard his client. The sheriff knew that people would show up to kill the inmate Mr. Robinson, when he told Atticus he also believed as the sheriff believed. As Atticus sit on the front door step of the jail sure enough here come a group of the locals to blow Mr. Robinson away. The group of the locals believed that Robinson was guilty just because Mayella and her father said he was. This group of locals felt he did not deserve a fair trial and begged Atticus to move out of their way. Atticus’ children Jem and Scout knew something was going on with their father so when they found out where he was they grabbed Dill and head to go help. If it were not for those children believing in their father I am not sure that Atticus would have been able to stop these men from going right through him to get to Mr.
Robinson. It seems that the children were prejudice not long before the talk with their father. All Atticus had to do is sit down and take some time with his children and explain how things really were. The children did not hesitate to take on the new beliefs that Atticus had instilled in them, they were right there defending what was right. Harper lets us know as readers that Atticus was not responsible for teaching his children to be this way but he quickly gets those kids back in line right. Many times society is to blame for what we believe or do not believe in. This book touches me due to the way people’s thought process was back years ago. Today we have problems with different races getting along no matter where you go. I can turn on the T.V. and listen to the local news of killings and fighting, I can listen to the world news and get more of the same stuff that is on local news. We cannot ignore what is really going on with people these days. I send my nine year old little girl to school every day and hope that other children are not being mean to her. Children at school are rough these days; it has always been like that. Here is the big picture though; children do not come up with this stuff by themselves. Children bring things to school to confront other children from conversations that they over hear their parents or guardians talking about the night before. So when this is all over and done who is to blame? It is the parents or guardians; children should be shelter from these kinds of grown conversations. Something else that touched my heart was at the end of this story Harper Lee gives me the impression that Bo Hadley is really a super guy. I will admit as a child I was just like Scout, believed everything that someone told me. It is amazing as a child I would believe some of the tall tales that were being told to me. Now as an adult I look at people and second guess what they are telling me if it does not seem probable. As a child I was very innocent and sheltered, you cannot say that about me now. I can recall a person that a few of us made fun of or did not talk to because we thought he was strange. I feel bad about that now, even before now I tried to find him on Facebook to apologize a few months ago, I cannot find him. I wish I had a happy ending to my childhood torture like Harper Lee gave Bo Hadley. Now Harper Lee is simply allowing us to see that we cannot always judge a book by its cover nor can we listen to someone else tell us about that book. Reading materials or books has different meanings to different people. What means one thing to me might mean two or three things to you. Sometimes not all times do people use the fact that making fun of someone or telling stories about them only takes the focus off of them. From now on I decided to do myself a favor, when someone tells me a story and I do not want to believe it then, I will start to look at that person for faults. A person should not judge another person period. Surely a person should know better than to judge a person if they have not walked in their shoes or even knows their shoe size. Literature can mirror anything that you want it too. All you need to do is have a story you want to tell, like a testimonial. People do not realize how much their own experiences help others. There are many times even reading my peers postings that I share something that they are going through. Most all times it is something that I am not willing to compromise and tell about myself from fear of social loss. Just in this story that Harper Lee put together I did get the chance to identify with some of my own personal wrong doing that I had done years ago. I do value what life was like years ago, it helps me to understand why things are the way they are now. Sometimes I ask questions about different things and my own mother will reply, “Beth that is the way things are, that is the way things have been.” I do not appreciate the saying until I can go back and research the way things really were. I used a poem about the morning time in last week’s assignment. I enjoyed listening to the way people started their mornings. At the end it seemed like it was talking directly to me, I have been complaining about life but doing absolutely nothing about it. So who is really to blame? It was me all along. The stories we tell and the day to day talk that we engage in is a mirror of our lives. If we are racist it will come out in our communications at some point. For me I believe that we I am sharing things with people I have a subconscious way of reflecting who I am and what I stand for.