To Kill A Mockingbird Critical Lens

In the novel Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee comments, “Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends” (Lee 270-1). This quote not only describes what prejudice is, but also how it comes to be. Prejudice is illustrated in many different forms throughout various works of literature. A few skillfully portrayed classics include: Twelve Angry Men, a play by Reginald Rose, “As I Grew Older”, a poem by Langston Hughes, and To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee. The aforementioned works all convey messages of racism, bigotry, and injustice.
The play Twelve Angry Men tells a story of a tainted jury nearly sending a nineteen year old from the slums of Chicago to death row with reasons based solely on bias. Two of the narrow-minded jurors include Juror Three; a sadist, and Juror Ten; a bigot. The entirety of the play is Juror Eight attempting to give a man a fair trial while others would rather send him to death, than discussing the fact he might be innocent. Rose, through Juror Eight, forces the jurors to ask themselves why they are so convinced he is guilty and why they have such biased toward him, and one juror responds “I just think he’s guilty. I thought it was
The title comes from Atticus stating to his children “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 94). The symbolism of the mockingbird represents the sin of the unfair trial and death of Tom Robinson. It was a wrongful conviction because not only was the verdict based on the color of his skin, but also due to the fact the jury did not want to believe a black man would ever feel bad for a white woman. Having this novel in the point of view of six year old Scout Finch allows the reader to experience the innocence of children and how it highlights that one is not born with preconceived ideas, but is rather