Thus the racist social values of Maycomb County are responsible for the failure of Atticus Finch’s defense for Tom Robinson. When hate and racism start controlling people, that hate will be factored into each decision they make in life. For example, defending someone who is guilty and criticizing someone who is innocent. As a result of hate and racism controlling the witnesses of the trial, they are another factor that cause Atticus’ defense to fail. There are several characters involved in the justice system of Maycomb County.
At the same time, Ryna is abandoned and left with the children, yet her name lives on through a scary, haunting gulch. Carr says‘The community rewards Solomon’s abandonment of his children but punishes Ryna’s inability to take care of them alone’ . This shows the oppressive, sexists attitudes the society in the novel has and portrays the plight Morrison presents black women to
“Throughout Riis’s work, he carries the prejudiced opinions of other middle class whites of this time. Does he believe these minorities are meant to live in the squalor of the tenements and deserve their poverty? Or does he blame the tenement and their landlords for these peoples’ plight?” Jacob Riis definitely points to the tenants as the victims in this situation; instead, Riis blames the landlords and the social system for the poverty that the tenants are stuck in. It is seen as a cycle in which the tenants make only enough to survive and therefore cannot save anything to better their situation, leaving them with no choice but to continue living and working in horrid conditions. “Not content with simply robbing the tenant, the owner,
In the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys repeatedly presents the idea of minority being considered as “other” through the theme of isolation and alienation of her characters and how isolation and alienation influence on the formation of characters’ identities. In Wide Sargasso Sea, different characters experience different types of isolation and alienation but Antoinette, the main character of this book, is the one who is isolated and alienated by the most due to her identity of being a Creole. She is marginalized by both the black majority and white minority on the island, and she is further destroyed when she is isolated and alienated by her husband, Rochester. Jean Rhys reveals that madness of Antoinette is not innate, but rather is a consequence of the isolation and oppression. As Antoinette is neither a black nor a pure white, she and her family are not accepted by any group in the society.
In Charles W. Chesnutt’s short story, “The Wife of His Youth” there are several instances that expose the ways in which racial inequalities effected people after the Civil War. The fact that racism exists throughout all cultures is unfortunate, and Chestnutt gives us a horrifying reminder of the way that racial inequality was in America. Chestnutt takes an interesting stance in this story: even within colored communities, internal racism still exists. The main character, Mr. Ryder, indicates how society impacts his ideologies and morals through his selfishness, unreliableness, and deception. His prejudice beliefs illuminate the hypocrisy within his culture, and the compulsion of undermining their own heritage.
Appearances and Reality Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are a multitude of examples of prejudice. These examples of prejudice are mainly directed towards the black citizens, simply based on the fact that there skin is a different color than that of the white citizens. This would not occur if the people where shown what they were doing, and someone explained to them what it was causing. The main theme represented by this novel is “appearances do not reflect realities and therefore quick judgments and stereotypes can be misleading.” Of course, these people don’t realize their mistakes, and therefore are unable to realize the wrong, and injustice it causes. At one point in the story, it seems as though other people besides the Finch family are seeing that judging people based on their looks is wrong.
Hester, being an outcast of society, experiences the most evident and apparent form of isolation and alienation. As a symbol of sin, Hester is viewed by the strict Puritanical town as an outsider, a presence of evil, and, ultimately, one who is detested by God. The town's harsh condemnation of Hester is revealed through a local woman's comment,
In addition, many Caucasians including the female protagonists in both texts felt some kind of racial guilt for what transpired in the past. In Disgrace and A Blade of Grass the female characters who reflect this racial guilt experience a loss, which leads to a tense friendship with a black African character that is resolved only to a degree by the novel’s conclusion. Firstly, Marit in A Blade of Grass and Lucy in Disgrace feel racial guilt and experience a loss. To begin, Marit believes that “blacks deserve fair treatment and are not receiving it” (Desoto, 276), and Lucy recounts a story where “blacks were beaten and evicted from their homes” which is “inhumane” (Coetzee, 124). In addition, both characters endure a loss: Marit’s husband, Ben, is killed by a land mine that he runs over while driving, and Lucy is raped by several black African males.
Othello’s character weaknesses are one of the main factors that caused his breakdown. Othello’s life is to an extent, driven by the fear of other people’s opinions and thoughts about him. Because of this, Othello can be seen as a very insecure man. It is known to the responder that Othello is insecure about his age, his colour and his social status. This is evident in the quote, “Haply for I am black, and have not those soft parts of conservation that chambers have, or for I am declined into the vale of years – yet that’s not much -” Act 3, Scene 3, lines 265-269.
These individuals are uneasy and uncomfortable in the acting as if they belong in a world that they distain and one that looks down on and despises them for not belonging. “This is my letter to the world that never wrote to me” [poem 66] This quote is of individuals who as a result of them failing to conform to the social pressures of contemporary have gained the status of outsiders, not belonging to the greater populace and ignored by it. Dickinson also has conveyed the message of those individuals that are introverts or for other reasons that labels them as outsiders that are tortured and killed from the inside when they are force to belong that of which they so clearly have no part of. Dickinson conveys her message with dark, death focused imagery that reflects the attitude of society towards her, individuals like her and the harm of forceful belonging. This quote identifies that message of harmful force of belonging, that of which is out of place “The plenty hurt me ‘twas so new.