Discrimination in the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.

Essay by Laska_plHigh School, 12th gradeA+, August 2003

download word file, 3 pages 2.0

Discrimination has caused pain and suffering for many centuries. Some examples of this include the Holocaust and slavery in the United States. In book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the discrimination is caused by not educated people. It means that people who are educated have the key to success because when you obtain less education you might judge people by their appearance, not how they really are.

One good example from the book occurs while Scout is frustrated by her inability to understand why her teacher acts as she does. Atticus tells her "... if you learn a simple trick, Scout, you would get a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you ... climb into his skin and walk around in it"(#30) This quotation shows the reader that you don't really know people until you put yourself in their position.

Also that educated people think twice and put themselves in other people position before they do or say something.

The second example were can we see discrimination is when Mr. Gilmer begins to annoy Tom, asking about his motives for always helping Mayella with her chores. This statement puts the courtroom ill at ease. In Maycomb, black people aren't supposed to feel sorry for a white person. Mr. Gilmer reviews Mayella's testimony, accusing Tom of lying about everything. In this quotation one can see how Mr. Gilmer discriminates against Tom: "Then you say she's laying , boy?...Didn't Mr. Ewell run you off the place, boy?" (#198) This passage shows us that by calling Tom "boy" and accusing him at every turn, the racist Mr. Gilmer believes that Tom must be lying, must be aggressive, must desire after white women, simply because he is black. The author shows us that...