Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

How does prejudice affect how people treat others? In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a southern town called Maycomb is filled with prejudice. The story is set in the 1930s, a heavily racist time. Scout and Jem, the main characters, can see how prejudice affects how people treat each other. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird shows how people judge each other without knowing what they’ve experienced through characters, events, and setting. In To Kill a Mockingbird, characters judged each other without thinking about what they have been through. When talking to Scout about school, Atticus said “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider
One big event was the court case of Tom Robinson. When Atticus was talking to the Jury, he said “You gentlemen would go along with the assumption...that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women.” (273). Atticus already knew that he could not win this court case, because no one would stand with Tom. In this event, Atticus was calling out the jury and every racist person in Maycomb. He was saying that they just assume that every negro is a bad person, but they don’t consider what they have experienced. They did not think that Tom, an innocent man, was about to have his life ruined. They only saw the color of his skin, and Atticus was not okay with that. Another example is when Scout beats up Walter Cunningham. After school, Scout thought “Catching Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me some pleasure, but when I was rubbing his nose in the dirt Jem came by and told me to stop.” (30). Scout was not thinking about Walter Cunningham in this scenario. She was only thinking of herself and how she had to explain that Walter was poor to the teacher, which inconvenienced her. Walter is already poor and has a hard enough life, but Scout continues to make it harder. Jem, who is more mature, realized this and got her to stop. Scout let her thoughts of prejudice get the better of her.
Scout overhears Atticus saying “I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness...without catching Maycomb’s usual disease. Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up…”(117). The “usual disease” is that Maycomb residence are extremely racist and prejudiced towards negroes. He knows that even if he had all of the evidence in the world, Maycomb would not side with a black man. Atticus only hopes that his children will not turn out like this, and that they will think about others and not be full of prejudice, unlike the town that they live in. He even says that the reasonable people go mad when a negro is involved/ Another example is when Scout overheard people talking about the case. After hearing them talk about knowing that Atticus was appointed to the job, she thought “But did this explain the town’s attitude? The court appointed Atticus to defend him. Atticus aimed to defend him. That’s what they didn’t like about it.” (218). This quote means that the people of Maycomb do not think about the situations of others. Atticus did not volunteer for the position of Tom’s lawyer, but was appointed to it. Despite this, he is treated horribly by the once reasonable people of Maycomb. They look past his situation and just think about him defending a black man, which is doing his job. Atticus is a