Racism In To Kill a Mockingbird a reoccurring theme is racism. The story takes place in Maycomb, a small gossipy town infected with the disease of racism. The white supremacy of the town is evident and there are instances of racism everywhere. An example being when Scout, Jem, and Dill get run out of the Radley’s yard and the neighborhood’s first reaction is to assume a black person was trespassing with ill intent. When Jem asks what all the commotion was about Miss Maudie even says, “Mr.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is based on these events; Great Depression, Dust Bowl, and the New Deal. The main character Tom Joad comes back from prison only to find an abandoned barren farm home. His family was hit by the Dust Bowl and they had to leave with no profit coming in. These events put everyone in hard economic times, even fictional characters. The Joads, characters in the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, are put through struggles because of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, but become stronger because they are able to survive.
Prejudice is Everywhere “There’s nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance” (Lee 221). Atticus, the narrator’s father in To Kill a Mockingbird, expresses his disgust in the manner of how white men treat the African-American race. This part of the novel is only one example of the prejudices observed in To Kill a Mockingbird, as the novel highlights the issue throughout. Racism was a major issue a large number of men, women, and even children had to face during the time periods of the novels To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Scout, the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird, is a young girl living in Maycomb, Alabama.
To Kill a Mockingbird Essay After reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I have learned just as much as Scout and Jem do during the novel. Many life situations occur in the book that is still relevant to our modern day lives. One of which stood out to me the most. Racism is a big part of our society these days, people judge based on something that a person does, and thinks the reason they did it was because of their race. Throughout the story you learn about the horrifying society we live in.
Jim Crow Laws MadeEvident in the Jim Crow Laws In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there is terrible discrimination against the Black race; demonstrated in the trial of Tom Robinson. It is clearly evident that the Jim Crow Laws affected many of the Black’s lives. God has put us as human beings on this earth to protect and take care of his creation, which requires us to respect and love one another. He made this evident through the Ten Commandments. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird portrays discrimination against Tom Robinson by the Southern community of Maycomb, Alabama, as a result of the Jim Crow Laws, and in disregard of God’s law.
After the civil war, Democrats would stop at nothing to take away the African Americans’ right to vote. Excessive violence and massacres occurred, killing many blacks before the upcoming election. The prejudice, racism and segregation continued to strengthen with the passage of “Jim Crow” laws. Jim Crow laws were enacted to make voting more difficult so that African Americans could not participate and therefore would have no voice. Some blacks had to pay to vote through the use of “poll taxes” while others were discouraged by complicated literacy tests.
Whites were terrified of the idea of a successful Black that anytime they stepped “out of line” they were brutally beaten, harassed or worse similar to the case of the three men in Memphis, lynched. Living as a Black woman in the segregated South Wells witnessed firsthand how racial hatred was affecting the growth of Blacks. This gross injustice defining Black life inspired her to launch a crusade against lynching until her death in 1931. Throughout her examination of economic and social causes of racial oppression such as share cropping, racial riots, voting and the idea of Black males raping white women, she developed her theoretical analysis of lynching in the South. The nation, in theory, believed that they had solved the issue of racism in the United States: not only was the Civil War over, but also, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were passed.
What is their purposes? The background of To Kill a Mockingbird is very early of 1900’s. The before of that period, there was slaves in the U.S., everything was unfair at that time, white people were high class, and African American people were lower class. White people treated others badly like slaves, all the kids who lived that time had been seeing it all the time, so they thought that it is normal, because their parents just did that. White people discriminated African American people for all things like law.
The story is shown through the eyes of Scout and Jem Fintch who are both growing up with the debate that involves her fathers Atticus Fitches lawsuit. Her father is a white man defending a black man by the name of Tom Robinson who is accused of raping a white girl. Racism plays a huge factor on the lives of these characters living in the town of Maycome. For the African Americans living in Maycome county it was much different then the whites. Black and whites were completely segregated.
Effects of the Great Depression Everyone throughout the United States took a big hit from the economic collapse in the 1920’s. It was called “The Great Depression” because that’s simply what it was. It was the worst time in the U.S. economy to date. Farmers, obviously unemployed men, women and children had to do whatever they could to survive. Farmers had an especially hard time during the Great Depression because many of them had taken out loans to pay for more equipment.