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What Are The Effects Of Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

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What Are The Effects Of Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird
In a small, run-down town in Alabama, everyone knows everyone. News travels fast, no one has a secret, and rumors are spread quite often. Innocent people are looked down upon simply because they are different. These quick judgements are enough to split the town and turn good people against each other. Many of these judgements are made from a background of prejudice which resonates in the town. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, prejudice is demonstrated through racism, social status, and sexism to show the negative effects of stereotyping. Prejudice is greatly expressed through racism in many instances throughout the book. In the town of Maycomb, there is an indirect sense of discrimination. While no one outrightly says it, everyone looks down upon black people and wants nothing to do with them. Scout and Jem, being young, innocent kids, do not understand that …show more content…
All of Scout’s life, she has grown up being a tomboy. This may be because she was raised mostly by her father, Atticus, and was highly impacted by her brother, Jem. She’s always grown up with the idea that being a girl was a bad thing. This concept is mostly brought on by her brother when making comments to her such as “I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it’s mortifyin’” (Lee 42). When playing with the boys, Scout also tells the readers, “Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with” (Lee 45). While she is encouraged to act this way by her brother, she is also exposed to the stereotype of women in the town. In the book, there is an underlying sense of how women are supposed to act and behave. They are to dress and act like a lady, and stay home taking care of the house. Women do not have jobs, or participate in politics. Women are considered more as property rather than

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