Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird Essay

Prejudice upon the innocent is a theme that is all too present in Nelle Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Many innocent characters, or mockingbirds, face abuse that alters their lives. In particular, the characters that most prominently face prejudice are; Tom Robinson, Dolphus Raymond, and Arthur “Boo” Radley. Each of these mockingbirds is different in his own sense, however, each man is faulted in the eyes of society. Robinson is an upstanding, hardworking citizen, but he is colored, an automatic fault in Maycomb. He faces unfair treatment in the court because, despite the fact that he is innocent at heart, he is guilty due to the color of his skin. Raymond is also victim to judgmental abuse because he loves a black woman, an offense that people cannot understand. Therefore, to please the judgmental town, he pretends to be drunk to give them a reason for his behavior. Boo Radley is a recluse, shut up inside the house every day, he hides from the hatred of the world. Boo hides from the prejudice he knows faces him just a step off his front porch. The rumors swirl around his life and they keep him inside. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Nelle Harper
In the 1930’s, people of color are being treated inhumanely, and Tom is an excellent representative of this struggle. As a black man accused of raping a white woman in a southern town, he is already at a disadvantage, with no hope of emerging as a victor. Tom is dead the moment that Mayella Ewell, the white woman, opens her mouth (Lee 245). It does not matter that Tom is a hardworking man who has a family, because he is always faulted in the eyes of Maycomb because of his color. Atticus Finch, the lawyer for Tom, tells his children that it is sinful to kill a mockingbird (Lee 93). Tom is a mockingbird and therefore, his conviction is a genuine sin and it is not one based on factual evidence, but pure ignorance and