To What Extent Is to Kill a Mockingbird a Novel About Racism and Prejudice?

To what extent is To Kill A Mockingbird a novel about racism and prejudice?

To Kill A Mockingbird is a novel that focuses on racism and prejudice, however that is not the only theme it has. Racism and prejudice is evident throughout the novel. The character that seems to receive the most racism is a dark skin coloured man, Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell. It is clear that he did not commit the crime but with an all white jury with prejudice in their mind decided he was guilty. It was common in the time the novel was written that small country towns like Maycomb had a lot of prejudice not just towards people with different skin colours but to people who were at a lower social class than themselves. In the novel, Aunt Alexandra is prejudice towards to Cunningham's who have to pay for people's service in bags of potatoes. The quote "The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he'll never be like Jem" shows prejudice towards the Cunningham. The novel shows that during that time in society there was a definite segregation between the whites and the blacks. All the whites would live on one side and all the black would live on the other side of the town, which was usually very downgraded. The people thought that "all blacks lie and that all blacks are basically immoral beings". This was the main racism in the novel. Even though racism and prejudice plays a big part in the novel, loss of innocence can be more clearly seen.

Loss of innocence is seen in the novel through Scout and Jem's perspective. They believe that everyone is equal to one another and colour of skins does not matter. This innocent is taken away from they all to quickly as they begin to discover the case of Tom Robinson. Scout does not view the case as Jem does. She instead comes to understand all the prejudice against Tom for his skin colour and still has faith in humanity. A significant turning point in which Scout losses her innocence is when she accompanies Boo Radley to his front porch after he had rescued her from Bob Ewell. She finally understands Atticus wise words when he told her "you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and you walk around in them". The perspective of life that Scout had as an innocent child develops into that of an adult. Jem losses his childhood innocence the moment he realises the prejudice in the case. The quote "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?" shows Jem's inner battle with his innocent to the new coming reality of life's cruelty. Therefore To Kill A Mocking Bird to an extent is a novel about racism and prejudice as a base where all the themes develop.