To what extent is To Kill a Mocking Bird a novel about prejudice? Essay

To what extent is To Kill a Mocking Bird a novel about prejudice? To Kill a Mocking Bird is set in Maycomb in a small southern American county this is of great importance to the novel. Scout best sums up the situation faced by Maycomb by saying 'There was no hurry. Because there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb'. The people of Maycomb were often inter related and posses traditional 'white conservative' moral values. This is why you would expect prejudice, divisions and narrowmindness to take place. Not many people have travelled outside Maycomb, this means they have not experienced different cultures to their own. This leads to a narrow minded community. To some extent to kill a Mocking Bird is a novel about prejudice as we witness adults attitudes to race and social divisions in the 1930's. The views of the people of Maycomb have not changed over time as they still hold the same rigid ideas as their ancestors. Atticus tells Scout 'You might hear some ugly talk about it (Atticus' case), but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down'. The people of Maycomb take their anger, of defending Tom Robinson out on Scout. Scouts cousin calls Atticus a 'Nigger Lover'. Scout tries to explain to Atticus 'that it wasn't so much what Francis said that had infuriated me as the way he had said it'. We see how Francis takes his families anger of Atticus' case out on Scout. The prejudice from Blacks to Whites is enormous in the novel. We see how harsh the community of Maycomb is towards Blacks and their hatred for them. In the conviction of Tom Robinson we see how an innocent mans freedom is... ...he Ewells is that the people of Maycomb believed that white people should not get involved with blacks, but Mayella broke this rule. Mayella did not intend to hurt Tom she was lonely and only wanted To seek affection. Mayella does not see blacks the same as the rest of Maycomb. 'There are four kinds of folk in the world. There's the ordinary kind like the neighbours, there and us's the kind like the Cunningham's out in the woods, the kind likes the Ewells down at the dumps and the Negroes'. The blacks are still shown below everybody else this shows the social barriers, which exist amongst the people in Maycomb . To kill a Mocking Bird is more then a book about racism it is about accepting people for who they are. Through out the novel we see how prejudice leads to discrimination. We see how people prejudice because they fear something that is different.