Prejudice in Maycomb
Prejudice affects not only the prejudged, but also the prejudging person. In her novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee displays many of the unfortunate consequences of both the people who are prejudged as well as of the people who are prejudging. Prejudice blinds the prejudger and hurts the innocent prejudged. Thus prejudice affects all people involved. The prejudged are not the only victims; the pre-judgers are also injured by their own actions. Because the pre-judgers form an opinion so quickly, they don't discover the talents of the person they are prejudging. A misguided notion is often very hard to get rid of, and blinds the pre-judger so that he cannot see the truth. Once the cloud of prejudgment is out of their eyes, the pre-judger can have a newfound respect for the person they had once prejudged. Lee portrays this when she shows that Scout and her brother, Jem, think their father "[is] feeble ... [and doesn't] do anything" (89) worth bragging about. Their paternal shame is turned to awe when Atticus, "the deadest shot in Maycomb," (98) kills a mad dog from a distance with one shot. Because Scout and Jem do not look past Atticus's exterior, they cannot imagine their father's real abilities. Sometimes the prejudger
Many times the prejudged suffer tremendously. Another consequence of a prejudging is that one forgoes wonderful qualities that a prejudged person may have. This causes them a lot aggravation and distress and shows that prejudice does not affect only the person it is directed. He was accused and charged with rape for the sole he reason he is black. When he went to jail Atticus had told him that they had a good chance for an appeal, but "Tom was tired of white men's chances and preferred to take his own" (236). [when] he said you never really know man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them"(279) , and that because of the town's rumors about the Radley family, she was missing out on an incredible friend. Prejudice will always be in the world. It is an invisible weapon that wounds in an indescribable manner. He had a family with three children to support. The jail guards completely discarded the fact that Tom [is] a person with a family to support; "he [is] just an escaping prisoner [to them]. Inferring from the town's rumors of Boo Radley being a bit strange because he never comes outside, Scout, Jem, and Dill believe that Boo is an evil man who dines on cats and poisons the pecans that fall from his tree into the schoolyard. Scout and Dill find out that all he ever sips from his sack is Coca Cola and Dolphus tells them that he pretends to be drunk because "it helps folks if they can latch onto a reason"(200) to excuse his unconventional ways. Because people in Maycomb are prejudiced against blacks, they don't like the fact that Atticus is defending Tom Robinson and they call him "nothin' but a n***** lover"(83). foot" (240), the same foot Dill said he sees stepping on Helen Robinson, Tom's wife, when she hears the news of her husbands tragic death; the giant foot of prejudice.
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Acceptance Essays
