To Kill a Mockingbird

Danielle Nadeker

Honors US History

05/12/00

To Kill A Mocking Bird Essay

It is a common fact that the pre-war South was extremely prejudiced. Blacks were thought of as no more than property that could be traded or sold. Therefore, when a black was accused of committing a crime, blame was automatically assigned regardless of whether or not the accusation was truthful.

In this story, Atticus Finch was given the task of defending a black man at trial, an almost unheard of practice at the time. Astoundingly, Atticus never questioned the Judge’s request of him to defend a black man; Atticus felt that Tom Robinson deserved a fair trial.

I feel that Atticus and Scout were perfect protagonist for Harper Lee’s feelings about racism. When you defend prejudice or racism of African Americans (or what ever they would prefer to be addressed as) you usually only have two viewpoints to chose from: Blacks or Whites. However, Lee chose to explain prejudice through the eyes of an unbiased child, Scout; and her anti-racist father, Atticus.

In an ironic way, Scout learned that having a prejudice was not always justified. For example, Scout and her brother Jem treated Aurthur “Boo” Radley differently because of the things that they heard about him. However in the end, Boo saved Scout and Jem from Mr. Ewell. Also, I do not think that