Essay on Social Inequality in To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960, teaching readers through a personal perspective on the injustice in human inequality and divisions within society.  Atticus and his children came face-to-face with a bitter realization: the world is not fair.  Tom Robinson, an honest black man, is ultimately convicted of rape, which he did not commit.  A reader may be quick to blame the characters themselves, but in reality, the problem was in the status quo.  Rather than viewing the faults in the individuals, readers should blame the environment that many were raised in that conditioned the characters to believe in that manner.  However, Atticus and his child, Scout,  constantly questioned notions that were believed to be facts.  The fascinating novel taught about the nuances of the law, the problem of human inequality, and the detriment to providing divisions to human society.

The justice system is a system put in place in order to bring justice to a victim but sometimes, people are instead victims of the justice system.  In To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was a victim of the law where he met his unfair demise because his words were seen as lesser than a white man’s.  “[The accuser’s case] has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant“ (271).  Atticus’s starting words in his closing statement is an outside point of view: the defendant strongly denies with a completely different testimony than the accusers.  According to the law in a criminal defense, the defendant must be guilty “beyond reasonable doubt.”  Henceforth, in a situation where the two opposing testimonies cannot be corroborated with any other evidence, it would be impossible to be without doubt.  Nonetheless, in a case obvious to a middle-school student, Tom Robinson was wrongly convicted by the jury.  The cause for this was evidenced: an unequal weight of the reliability of the testimony.  From the jury’s point of view, the case was beyond reasonable doubt since it was unfathomable to them that a white man’s word could be taken at the same weight as a black man’s word in any scenario.  Racial prejudice and human divisiveness influenced the justice system through bias -- with Tom Robinson to show for it. 

Human inequality in a society is when rights and benefits are withheld from a group of people by the government.  Bob Ewell and their family were considered disgraces of Maycomb for three generations, yet when their word is to be questioned against a black man, there was no doubt whether their word was true.  Atticus’s speech outlined the absurdity in doubting a person’s word simply on skin color.  “The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentleman... confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption--the evil assumption--that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associated with minds of their caliber” (273).  Inequality was quite evident in a court, where supposedly, “all men are equal.”  Bob and Mayella Ewell’s word was taken as a saint’s: the Ewell’s notorious past was disregarded simply because of the racial inequality of black people.  Atticus isolated the problem in his speech, noting the idiocy of Maycomb in the presumption of immorality simply because of skin color.  When the government imposed segregation laws that forced human division, any reason is out of the equation.  Rather than looking at a court case in an unbiased point of view, the jury could not look beyond the racial difference between them and the defendant. 

Racial prejudice was a thematic form of human inequality and division, but economic positions were an underlying problem even in Atticus’s own family.  Aunt Alexandra, Atticus’s sister, was a traditional Maycomb woman who clearly showed this sentiment.  “‘Jean Louise, there is no doubt in my mind that [Cunninghams] are good folks.  But they’re not our kind of folks…’  ‘But I want to play with Walter, Aunty, why can’t I?’  She took off her glasses and stared at me.  ‘I’ll tell you why… [b]ecause--he--is--trash, that’s why you can’t play with him.  I’ll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what’” (299, 301).  In this dialogue, Aunt Alexandra clearly differentiates the middle-class and the low-class: a human division as old as money.  Rather than showing compassion for the tribulations of the poor, Aunt Alexandra disdains them, viewing them in contempt.  A division of socioeconomic status was seen in the public and through a psychological barrier of stubbornness: those that are less fortunate monetarily are not of the same worth to the world as those who can make a living.  Aunt Alexandra was a symbol of what the status quo was for women and class; she viewed things from a perspective where dwelling on those that were poor or racially discriminated were not worth her time; those in the middle class should not associate with people of that kind. 

Many could argue that the advantages of being white or rich does not contain an innate wrong because there are no scenarios where human advantages are nonexistent.  Nonetheless, Harper Lee demonstrated the innocence of a child that shows the advantages of a world where the individuals’ hearts are pure.   “No, everybody’ gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin’...  I think there’s just one kind of folks.  Folks” (304).  In Scout’s opinion, there is no true human division: it is only manmade.  Harper Lee demonstrates with great efficacy what the world is under the scope of a person with no inherent prejudices or judgemental thoughts.  The entire novel allows the reader to understand the personality of many people through adult articulation but from an unbiased view.  For example, Mayella Ewell was described as lonely in contrast to everyone else’s views: she was not seen as a disgrace of Maycomb but a person with her troubles.  Scout’s outlook on people greatly contrasted with those around her who could not look beyond manmade divisions.  An unfortunate reality is that beliefs are acquired through experiences, but if everybody viewed the world from Scout’s viewpoint, a fundamental problem found in many populations would be nonexistent.

All in all, Harper Lee used To Kill A Mockingbird to effectively teach countless people about the various detriments to human division and racial inequality.  Harper Lee presented the world where people such as Tom Robinson and the Cunninghams were shunned from Maycomb’s community because the majority of the population was incapable of looking past a difference between themselves and others.  In the court case of Tom Robinson and the views stated by Aunt Alexandra, the novel taught the consequences of viewing the world in divisive manners: the world would give unfair disadvantages to those that were already fighting an uphill battle.  The depictions of the story may be fictional, but it is symbolic of the disparities that countless people faced in the past few centuries.  To Kill A Mockingbird displayed the adult world adjacently to the child’s world.  Although things may be overlooked, the world has no meaningful division in a world that Scout views.  Nevertheless, the mature, adult world is where the most major injustices are present with little sympathy to show.  In conclusion, Harper Lee efficaciously taught about the world’s inequities in a real-world setting where injustice is a common occurrence: all caused by human inequality and unnecessary divisions.