"To Kill A MockingBird''

To Kill a Mockingbird

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee). In the Maycomb County there is a lot of whites, blacks and even some mixed. There are some that are wealthy and some that are not. Some get along and others do not. Even in a small town, they all live so differently. Throughout Harper lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, hypocrisy, injustice and evil is envisioned in an adult society. Miss Gates and Lula contradict themselves. Atticus is harassed, Tom Robinson gets accused for a crime he did not commit. Bob Ewell tries to kill Scout and Jem and Maycomb is loaded with rumours of Boo Radley,

Firstly, hypocrisy is mentioned throughout the story. A main event is at school; miss Gates decides to teach the students about democracy and dictatorship. “Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. Prejudice” (Lee 245). Miss Gates clearly contradicts herself because Maycomb County persecutes African Americans all the time. Another main event is when Calpernia brings the children to her church and a woman named Lula is not happy. “You ain’t got no business bringing’ white chillum here. They got their own church, we got our’n … “ (119). Lula does not want the kids there because they are white and to her eyes all whites are prejudice, but she too is being prejudice. This is a way that Scout and Jem see the hypocrisy of an adult world because they see someone get mad at a specific race for doing exactly what she does, which is unjust.

Second of all, Atticus suffers injustice from the fact he commits into taking Tom’s case. He is regularly persecuted for this decision. “ You’re father is no better then the niggers and trash he works for!" (102) This makes Atticus work even harder to win the case. He tries to ignore the threats and harassments and keep the community happy. But tries to keep the law in mind. On the other hand, Tom Robinson is the character that suffers the most injustice and receives the worst consequence, death. Tom is innocent and Atticus makes it clear, but Tom is black. “… I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man” (208). Because Tom is a victim in Maycombs county policy where an honest black man’s word does not rank up to a dishonest white man. The jury has no choice but to convict him. Helen is devastated but she subjects more to evil then hypocrisy.

Finally, there are a lot of forms of evil involved in the novel. One is Bob Ewell, who savagely tries to murder Jem and Scout during an angry drunken rage. “ ‘This morning Mr. Bob Ewell stopped Atticus on the post office corner, spat in his face said he’d get him back if it took the rest of his life ’ “(217). Bob wants revenge even after he won because Atticus was defending Tom. So he goes for the most valuable thing in Atticus’s life, his children. Another form of evil is gossip. The town is filled with rumors about Boo Radley. ’ “People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in the windows. When the people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work” ‘(9). When something happens the town automatically blames Boo because of his family reputation.

In conclusion, this book does an excellent job of showing the evil through Bob Ewell, Injustice through Tom Robinson for being found guilty in his murder trial when he was clearly innocent. And hypocrisy through Miss Gates. Adults have faults and weaknesses. Many of the parts in adult society affect the children in them. The children have to learn to deal with society and the way that it is, because it is hard to change the society and its ways.