- #To kill a mockingbird characters sparknotes skin
- #To kill a mockingbird characters sparknotes trial
As Atticus says in his closing statement, “a court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.” However, what we see is that the people who make up a jury are not necessarily as sound as he/we would hope-Scout later recognises that the true trial occurs in the “secret courts of men's hearts”, and that racist biases were always going to get in the way of a fair verdict.
The intersection of these themes-race, prejudice and justice-forces us to confront the reality that our legal institutions may not be as colour-blind and impartial as we thought. The court of law is supposed to be this colour-blind, impartial site of dispute resolution, where anybody “ought to get a square deal”, but the reality we see in the novel falls dramatically short Tom is indeed ultimately found guilty despite the evidence to the contrary. In the second part of the novel, these moral questions around prejudice and empathy find an arena in the courtroom, where Tom has been unfairly charged with rape and is being defended by Atticus.
#To kill a mockingbird characters sparknotes skin
The word ‘resentment’ has special significance here in the context of the Great Depression (in which the novel was set-more on this in a later section) but the general idea is clear: Black Americans like Tom Robinson were guilty, and therefore doomed, the minute they stepped into a court because the white jury inevitably bore prejudices against them.Īt the end of the day, the panacea Lee presents for prejudice is empathy, the idea that only by truly understanding someone, “climb into skin and walk around in it”, can we overcome our own prejudices-something that the jury isn’t quite able to do by the end of the novel. The racial dimension of prejudice is impossible to ignore though-as Atticus says, “people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box”. Even when invited to dinner by the Finches, he is dismissed by Scout as “just a Cunningham”, and this is where Calpurnia steps in as the moral voice, chastising her for acting “high and mighty” over this boy who she hardly knows. What is prejudice, after all? In this case, it doesn’t have to do with race necessarily-it’s more about how the children judge Boo, form a preconceived image of who he is, before they really know him.Īnd this happens to other white characters too-notably Walter Cunningham, a boy from a poor family who Aunt Alexandra straight up derides as “trash”.
While they (particularly Jem and Dill) lowkey harass Boo by playing around his yard, re-enacting dramaticised versions of his life, and sending notes into his house with a fishing pole, they undoubtedly get drawn into the rumours as well: he was “six-and-a-half feet tall”, he “dined on raw squirrels” and he had a head “like a skull”. However, before any question of race is introduced, the children must confront their prejudices about Boo Radley, a local recluse who was rumoured to have attacked his parents. Prejudice and Race in To Kill A MockingbirdĪll throughout the novel resonate messages of tolerance over prejudice. We’ll be going through the novel’s major themes, and also looking at it a bit more critically within the historical context of civil rights and racial justice struggles.īefore we dive into To Kill A Mockingbird, I'd highly recommend checking out LSG's Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response. The first part follows their childhood, and their interactions with characters such as Boo Radley, Walter Cunningham, Miss Caroline and Mrs Dubose, while the second part follows the Tom Robinson trial itself, testing the children on the moral lessons of their childhood and disillusioning them to the overwhelming racism of their community. The novel is narrated in two parts by his younger child, Scout, and along with her brother Jem and their friend Dill, she traces their upbringing as inspired by Atticus’ moral teachings of tolerance, courage and justice. Many lawyers today would cite this 60-year-old story as an inspiration-Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is, at its core, the tale of one attorney’s quest against racial injustice in his Deep South home, and of his children coming of age in the shadow of their father.
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