Essay:
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel about youth seeing evil, hypocrisy, and injustice in adult society.
Identify and describe three examples for each from the novel. How did reading this novel heighten
your awareness of inequality in America during the 1930s? Support your answer. When considering,
the themes of racism, bigotry, and poverty within To Kill a Mockingbird, do you think America has
“come far” in overcoming these inequalities or do you think we “have far” to go? Support your opinion.
Ryan Kio
Some examples of evil would be when Bob Ewell attacks Jem and scout when they were walking home from the pagent. Another example of evil would be when Bob Ewell beats his daughter mayella and then denies it. The last example of evil would be the racism put towards Rom Robinson by most of the Macomb County.
An example of injustice that was in To Kill A Mockingbird was how nobody even gave Atticus a chance to win Tom Robinsons case all because Tom was black. Another example would be Aunt Alexandria trying to get scout to act more like a lady, scout doesn’t have to act ladylike if she doesn’t want to. The last example would be the kids thought that Boo Radley had something wrong with him because he always stayed in the house, and they treated him different because they really didn’t know him.
Hypocrisy is when someone says something the opposite of what they really do, an example of hypocrisy in the book is Ms. Gates she was talking about how badly the jews were being treated by Hitler and then someone found that she didn’t like atticus defending Tom Robinson. Another example would be how Aunt Alexandria told scout to wear dresses to attract the boys then wouldn’t let her talk to boys.
Reading To Kill a Mockingbird really taught me about how bad racism in the 1930’s really was. I didn’t realize they hung and beat people for no reason. I think America has come a long way since the 30’s. Blacks have as many rights as whites do.