To Kill a Mocking Bird, Book Review Example

African Americans and Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird deals with issues of racial prejudice. The novel is concerned with the policies of discrimination against African Americans in the American south  that were common in the early twentieth century. The basis of prejudice in the American south during this time stemmed from the history of slavery when African Americans were bought and sold like cattle by the Caucasian masters.  Even after the American Civil War ended slavery, African Americans still faced widespread discrimination. Racism, particularly in the south, was a daily part o life for most Americans, black or white.  This time-period is often referred to as the “Jim Crow” period of American history.

Under the laws of “Jim Cow” during this time in the American south, African Americans were made to use separate drinking fountains from white people, as well as being made to rid ein the backs of busses, adn to attend all-black schools. Other, more heinous examples of racism and discrimination included crimes such as lynching and rape.  White southerners retained the belief that was prevalent before the Civil War that African Americans were less-than-human and therefore did not deserve equal protection under the laws. It is against this background that Harper Lee wrote her novel. Racism and its damaging impact on American society is a major theme in To Kill a Mockingbird.

I personally found the novel to be a powerful repudiation of not only racism, but ignorance. This is because Harper Lee does such a masterful job of connecting the racism that is practiced in the novel by white southerners to their relative ignorance. This theme in the novel is ironic because it is the whites who believe that African Americans are intellectually inferior. The reader of To Kill a Mockingbird quickly realizes that the children who serve as protagonists of the novel are counter-examples of the jaded racism embodied by Bob Ewell. The characters are symbols of the innocence of America and also of its criminal, racist past. The crisis of the novel is whether or not the children will become jaded by the racist attitudes they discover underlying their sleepy, southern town, or whether they will reject these ideas and follow Atticus Finch’s example.

I thought that Scout’s name was symbolic of this choice as the children stood as symbols for America’s future. The idea of a “scout” is someone who looks ahead to determine the best path or course of action. Scout, as a symbol for the youth adn innocence of America, stood for the future of American society. Similarly, her brother’s name “Jem” is very similar to the word “gem” which may indicate a treasure or some sort of future that is worth winning. I think that the novel also places the reader in a position to make the same kind of moral choice as the characters in the novel . The cat that most readers will identify with Atticus and the Finch children is a recognition on behalf of Harper Lee that most people in America in the years following the Great Depression were probably ready to move beyond America’s racist past.

In this way, Harper Lee’s theme in the novel is that those who resist the positive evolution to the future are those who refuse to learn from history. this is another way of equating racism and prejudice with ignorance. It is a very effective way because it involve and emotional argument based on the preservation of innocence and hope in American society. In order to represent the crisis that racism against African Americans caused during the early twentieth century, Harper Lee was careful to show many facets of racism. Throughout the novel, scenes are included that help to dramatize the effect that racism had on African Americans. Harper Lee is also careful to show that racism, on the part of the white southerners was also a complex issue. The racism that was symbolized and demonstrated by Ewell was meant to show the most gross forms of racism against African Americans, but more subtle forms of racism are also shown in the novel, including scenes that reflect poorly on Atticus Finch and his family.

For example, the Finch family employs an African American maid named Calpurnia. She is also a “nanny” who is responsible for taking care of Scout and Gem. Although she is a maternal figure to the children, she reacts to them with a combination of authority and servility as when she chastises Jem: ” “Hush your mouth, sir!” (Lee, 343). She routinely refers to Scout and Jem a “sir and ma’am” and this shows that African Americans were socialized to consider whites to be their superiors.  Despite the fact that she has such an intimate relationship with the Finch family, she is forced to sit in the back-seat of Atticus’ car when she rides with him because it was improper for an African American woman to ride in the front with a white man.  She eats at a separate table from the rest of the family during their meals even though she is the person who prepares their meals.

This complex representation of racist attitudes is part of the way in which Harper Lee builds complex characters. Her strategy is to show not only the complexity of racism and its role in American society, but its irony. The fact that Atticus and his family are dependant on an African American woman to keep their family functioning in no way prevents them from viewing African Americans as “separate” from whites. One clear indication that the Finch’s participate in southern racist culture is the way in which Scout approaches Atticus to discuss his involvement in the Robinson trial. Scout approaches him and asks “Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” (Lee, 122). Her nonchalant use of the word prompts a rebuke by Atticus who tells her that the word “nigger” is “common.” His implication that the word is both undesirable and common is a confession on his part that he knows, first hand, how deeply racist attitudes are involved in their society.

The idea of being personally initiated into the cycle of racism in the American south is the motivation behind Harper Lee choosing to tell the story from a first-person narrative point of view. The fact that it is Scout who is telling the story is deeply significant. Not only is Scout the symbolic embodiment of America’s hope for the future, but Scout also represents women, who are another class that is discriminated against in American society.  Harper Lee is able to draw a powerful dramatic contrast between the relative intelligence of Scout as a child and the adults around her who are contributing tot a criminal society that persecutes African Americans.

Direct bigotry and racism against African Americans was not only something that lay hidden under the quiet and civilized exterior of American society. It was actually a living, breathing power that exerted an everyday influence on everyone who lived in America regardless of their age, skin-color, gender, or economic class. The first-person narrative carries a kind of confessional quality to it that is meant to be a purging of guilt. The narrator of the novel, Scout, feels guilt for her own participation in the southern racist culture of her youth.

Scout’s involvement in tat racist culture extends far beyond her simple use of the word “nigger.” It extends to her ambivalence or ignorance about the true mature of human relationships and morality.  While the African Americans in Scott’s society are being oppressed and made to serve their white counterparts, the white children are enjoying idyllic childhoods. they are oblivious to the racist structure of their society. They are ignorant of the fact that their lives are in many ways dependant on the crime of racism.  The world is almost beatific. The central irony of the novel is that the children, enjoying their idyllic world, must create a monster out of  “Boo” Radley while, in reality, they are already living in the midst of a monstrous society.

The double-irony is, of course, that the children are engaging in a rudimentary form of discrimination in their myth-making about “Boo” Radley.  They are equating outer-appearance with inner-truth, just as racist whites equate skin color with intelligence and dignity. The idea of dignity is, of course, one of the most important ideas in the novel and it is used both heroically an ironically in the course of the story.  The use of irony and rising-action in the novel are important aspects of the novel’s organizational structure.

In the novel, the rising-action reads very much like a  detective story or a mystery. The step-by-step revelation not only of the nature of the alleged crime committed by Tom Robinson, but of the reason why Tom Robinson was falsely accused of raping  Mayella, are revelations of painful ironic truth. The first revelation, that Tom has been charged with raping a white woman, is a revelation of the underlying racism of American society. It is also an indication that this racism is based at least to some extent on sexual fear and sexual objectification. The second revelation is that Tom Robinson was falsely accused of rape because he acted like an honorable man rather than fulfilling Mayella’s racist sexual fantasies.

The point of the novel is not only to point out the sexual connotations of racism against African Americans, but to indicate how these connotations are based in ignorance. Mayella assumes that Tom Robinson, an African American man, will not only be sexually opportunistic, but that he will be sexually powerful. He provides her with a fantasy of power and escape from her miserable existence. However, due to the racist attitudes of the society that Mayella lives in, she is actually able to control adn dominate Tom simply because his skin is black and her skin is white. Though Mayella is poor, uneducated, and lonely, she considers herself superior to Tom who is a family man adn an able provider despite the fact that he has a crippled hand.

Furthermore, Mayella inability to confess her lies is contrasted with Tom Robinson’s eloquent proclamation of truth. During the trial scenes, Mayella’s testimony indicates just how corrupt and hateful she is. The reader suspects that her attitude is the result of abuse she has received from her father. The entire Buell family seems sad and dysfunctional. By contrast, the Robinson family is Christian and humble and appears to be based on mutual love and support. The irony that is being conveyed by Harper Lee in this dramatic contrast is not only that racism is wrong, but that it is an outgrowth of a sick society. The characters who are involved in the trial are all complex characters ho bring various sets of emotional and psychological biases to the case. The determinant factor, in each person, remains their degree of prejudice.

By showing just how powerful racist attitudes against African Americans were at this time in American society, Harper Lee was also able to make a general observation about the nature of American democracy. Her vision was one where the law and the institutions of government were based on the ideas of justice and equality. ths is why the most tragic part of the novel is when Tom Robinson is killed when he allegedly tries to escape from his captors. The reason that his death is tragic is that it is a triumph of the racist attitudes held by the most ignorant and biased members of society against the more forward-thinking and noble ideas of those who believe in equality for all poeple.

The theme of prejudice against African Americans is probably one of the most complicated and difficult subjects that any writer could choose for a novel. Harper Lee approaches the theme with emotion, logic, irony, and  honesty. The last quality is the most important because, without it, the topic of racism in America would remain an unspoken crime. The reality is that almost every significant event in American history relates in some way to its racist tradition, just as , in some way, its future is highly dependant on the resolution of prejudices and racism in American society. Harper Lee’s novel must be considered visionary in this respect because it dared to take on a difficult almost taboo subject without resorting to simple portrayals or empty slogans.

Simply because a novel is able to articulate a complex them and create multidimensional characters does not make that novel great. In the case of To Kill a Mockingbird, it is difficult to say whether or not I “liked’ the novel because it seemed to go beyond a simple matter of liking or disliking. I was disturbed by the novel, as I I belive Harper Lee intended her readers to be disturbed by it, but I was also deeply moved by its poetic memories and its feelings of childhood innocence. It is only when I started to connect this feeling of nostalgia for childhood innocence with the idea of America’s future that I started to consider the fact that the novel was brilliant. The deepest meaning of the novel lies in the fact that it not only humanizes the impact of racist attitudes, but it shows with emotional honesty the toll of bigotry and hate.

The novel should be read widely because it is an important perspective on an aspect of American history that is too often swept aside. the long evolution of American prejudices against African Americans may have begun in the days of slavery and  found an historical climax during the Civil War, but it has never truly ended. Not even in the years following the time-period describes in To Kill A  Mockingbird, despite the enacting of Civil Rights laws in the 1960’s and despite the election of an African American President in the 21st century, America remains a country and culture that is deeply torn by racist attitudes against African Americans. Harper Lee views the continued racist traditions in America as emerging out of ignorance. This is an opinion that I feel is very strong. Seen from this perspective, the novel is meant to act as an intellectual battering ram against the ignorance that underlies racism in American society.

Work Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Collins, New York, 1960.