To Kill a Mockingbird Theme Essay Example

How does one trial shine a light on all the prejudice and injustice in Maycomb? The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. In the novel, Tom Robinson has to have a court trial because he is accused of raping and beating Mayella Ewell. While Mayella wins the case, her father Bob Ewell is still angry at the people he thought made him look like a fool in the courtroom. Bob Ewell attacks the kids, and Boo Radley, the mysterious neighbor who has stayed in his house for decades, stabs Bob in order to save the children he has been watching over. There was a large amount of prejudice and injustice against Tom Robinson and centered around his trial. 

One place we see prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird is when Miss Stephanie and Miss Gates were talking about how they think they are better than black people. Previously in class, Miss Gates had been telling the kids how Hitler is bad for being prejudiced and “Over here we don’t believe in” (Lee, 329) being against certain types of people. However, she was complaining about black people and saying “it’s time somebody taught ’em a lesson, they were gettin‘ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us.” (Lee, 331) Miss Gates was being very hypocritical and saying that you should not be prejudiced, but then doing the very thing she claimed to be against right at home. By saying that there is not prejudice where she lives, Miss Gates is showing that she sees blacks as her inferiors and not her equals and doesn’t count being against them as prejudice. Since the trial had just happened, Miss Gates was also implying that Tom Robinson trying to help Mayella was not okay and he needed to be taught that blacks can’t help white people. Miss Gates was being very hypocritical about prejudice and racist toward the black community. 

We can also see injustice when Atticus knows that he is going to lose Tom’s case because he’s black. Before Atticus even starts the process, he automatically knows that the court won’t side with a black man for a verdict. Scout, not understanding that the jury is prejudiced, asks Atticus if they’ll win the case long before the trial even starts. “‘Atticus, are we going to win it?’ ‘No, honey’” (Lee, 101) Atticus knowing that he won’t win the case before he starts it is an example of how prejudiced Maycomb is, that a black man will never get a fair chance in court. Likewise, when Tom Robinson was killed after attempting to escape prison, Atticus said that “I guess Tom was tired of white men’s chances and preferred to take his own”(Lee 315). This also shows that Tom knew him as a black man would not have a fair chance over the white men. The injustice in Maycomb didn’t allow Tom Robinson a fair chance in court. 

Another example of prejudice against blacks in Maycomb is when Mr. Nathan Radley says he shot at a Negro. Scout, Dill, and Jem were creeping around the Radley backyard and trying to look in the windows. Mr. Nathan Radley heard them and shot at them with his gun. Everyone in the neighborhood heard the shot and came running to see what had happened. Instead of telling the truth, Mr. Radley told the neighbors that he was shooting at a Negro. The neighbors then all thought that “Mr. Radley shot at a negro”(Lee, 72). He said this because he knew that if he told them he was shooting at kids, they would never believe him and say that kids are harmless. This shows us that everyone in Maycomb has a stereotypical view of black people, that they are bad and always causing trouble. A black person is the type of person that Maycomb’s society thinks would be sneaking around and made Mr. Radley’s story more believable to them. Mr. Nathan Radley telling the people in Maycomb that he was shooting at a Negro instead of the children shows that most of the neighbors have a very stereotypical and bad view of black people. 

Tom Robinson and his trial brought out a great deal of prejudice and injustice in Maycomb. While there was much more prejudice and injustice towards blacks in the 1930s, there is still some happening today. An example of prejudice and injustice is when Stop and Frisk was allowed. Many innocent people (mostly blacks) were being stopped and searched because police wanted to search them. Because the police saw all blacks as being bad, they were prejudiced and stopping only blacks to be searched. Just like in Maycomb, many people were prejudiced against black people. Tom’s trial alone showed us a large amount of prejudice and injustice in Maycomb.