Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

The Power of Injustice

In Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, a young girl named Scout Finch recounts her adventures in Maycomb, Alabama. At home, Scout and her older brother, Jem, explore the town with their friend, Dill, who visits every summer. Together, the curious children deepen their understanding of the town by interacting with their neighbors and involving themselves in their father’s court case. Their father, a well-respected lawyer named Atticus, defends the case of Tom Robinson, an innocent African-American man. Atticus faces against the word of a white family and the judgements of the town. Harper Lee wrote this Pulitzer Prize winning novel at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in order to speak out against the harsh
The simple town of Maycomb acts as an image to describe the racial division in Southern towns with each character representing a different perspective and background on racism. Atticus delivers his final statement to defend Tom Robinson’s case while the children watch from above in the balcony with the African Americans. Facing the jury Atticus truthfully speaks, “There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire,” (pg. 273). Knowing the court will immediately judge Tom Robinson based on the color of his skin and immediately assume he is an “immoral being” that is “not to be trusted,” Atticus attempts to remove the jury’s stereotype. Atticus emphasizes that Tom Robinson is a normal human being who had the “unmitigated temerity” to assist Mayella Ewell, the white girl testifying against Tom Robinson. However, despite Atticus’s use of critical evidence that “flatly contradicted” the Ewell’s testimony, the jury convicts Tom as guilty. The jury sentences Tom because of the ignorance they have towards African Americans, confining him to his societal role as an inferior human being. Harper Lee wrote this book to discuss the injustice of racism in by using Tom Robinson’s case to fuel her
After Miss Caroline sends Burris Ewell home, Atticus talks to Scout about the Ewell family,”’There are ways of keeping them in school by force, but it’s silly to force people like the Ewells into a new environment,” (pg.40). To Maycomb, based on the Ewell family’s manners, actions, and wealthy, they were the “disgrace of Maycomb for three generations”. While Scout is considered as “common folk”, the Ewell family consists of “animals” based on their “exclusive society made up of Ewells”. No one in town wanted to associate with this family, often leaving the children to seclude themselves from the town while their father spends “his relief checks on green whiskey”. Compared to the financially stable Finch family who are respected in town, Lee depicts the obvious division of the different social levels. Therefore, Harper Lee wrote her book to speak about the divided social classes by using the Ewell