To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, there are gender, racial, and social class prejudice.

Firstly, throughout the book gender prejudice was shown by most of the folks in Maycomb County. For example, the book shows Scout was laughed at by the Finch family because of her lack of ladylike, and because she was a girl she was expected to act  more ladylike and wear girl clothing. For more proof, in To Kill the Mockingbird the men of Maycomb talk of how women should not participate in the court system because this may cause a confrontation with some crazy convict. I think that gender prejudice is an important topic of the book because the girls in the examples above are being restricted from things that society doesn’t want them to do and they can't do anything about it.

Secondly, in the book racial prejudice is dealt with on a daily basis, and is distinctly brought upon blacks. To demonstrate, in the book people of Maycomb show racial prejudice when they take the word of a smelly, no good, dirty white woman over a sweet, good, wholesome Negro. To more shows, in the book the blacks are sitting in the upper balcony so the whites can have a clear view of the courtroom. To clear things up, in Maycomb County, it was hell to be a black person.

Lastly, the third prejudice talked about in the book is social class prejudice. For instance, in the book the people of Maycomb looked down on the Ewell family because of their lack of taking baths and brushing their teeth. Another instance, social class prejudice was brought to my attention when I saw that the blacks of Maycomb county were forced to pay for their own church because they weren't allowed to go to the white peoples church. So in result low social class is being looked at different and suffering harsh treatment.

Therefore, because Maycomb County shows social class, racial, and gender prejudices, that is one reason you should be glad you didn’t grow up in the 1930’s.