To Kill A Mockingbird Research Paper

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Evan Abramoff 1-17-14 Revision: 3-5-14 TKAM Essay The fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama that was created by Harper Lee in the story To Kill a Mockingbird, was full of prejudice against blacks. This was the same prejudice that sparked the Civil Rights Movement, which instilled in our minds that all men are indeed created equal. But in the racist town of Maycomb, where a black man was accused of a crime, the prejudice will emerge during the trial. The defendant, Tom Robinson, was being tried for allegedly raping and beating a teenage girl by the name of Mayella. Atticus, the defense attorney, formulated an argument in which he explained it was Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father, who beat her. In his concluding speech, he made several points,…show more content…
Honesty is not a racial issue, but in Alabama in 1935, racism was very much a reality in the daily lives of people. The feeling of white supremacy was taught down by each generation, and it spread like a virus. Slurs against blacks were not unusual. Colored signs were not unusual. Separate bathrooms were not unusual. And of course, prejudice was not unusual. Atticus knows prejudice is a terrible thing and tries to sway the jury and audience away from prejudice, much like he does with his children through the lessons he teaches them. In this case, he makes the jury and audience feel the unnecessary guilt that Tom Robinson and all blacks feel as a result of prejudice. He does this in an attempt to soften the people of Maycomb and make them think in a non-racist way. In the real world, there are several examples of people buying into an assumption and believing it even though it contradicts their morals. This is called stereotyping in the real world. Stereotyping is when a person lacks information about a person or group of people, and creates a usually false piece of information to fill the abyss that is the lack of knowledge. A plethora of stereotypes exist in the world, all of which are perfect examples of the stereotyping Mr. Gilmer did in the Tom Robinson trial, saying that all blacks lie. Like…show more content…
He does so by making the following points: the fact that the poor, uneducated, hopeless Mayella tried to cover up the fact that she broke the moral code of society by blaming Tom Robinson; the fact that the assumption that all blacks lie is untrue, and only some blacks lie, just as some whites lie; and the fact that on the street, people are not equal: some people are smarter than others, some are more talented, etc. But in a court of law, all men are equal. Through his speech, he hopes to make the jury and audience look at themselves and realize how awful prejudice really is. Unfortunately, his attempt is unsuccessful, and the innocent Tom Robinson is declared guilty of a crime he never committed, but one that was created inside the delusional mind of a poor and uneducated teenage girl. In 1935, society still fails to realize the cruelty of racism and the desperate need for acceptance; the only thing causing such hatred is skin
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