Bildungsroman To Kill A Mockingbird

The bildungsroman novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee was once voted to be the most inspirational book in history, over ruling even the Bible. Though there are some hard topics to face in reading this novel, they are present as cautionary examples for readers to avoid making the same mistakes. Lee constructs the society of Maycomb as a discriminatory environment that places the black community in a subservient position to the whites, by exploring the life of a young girl. By following Scout we experience the ups and downs of living in her society and can acknowledge how a young child would have reacted to the class discrimination and racial inequality that take place in To Kill A Mockingbird. On the outside, Maycomb’s society may seem …show more content…
The colored folk are forced to sit in their own balcony in the courthouse and are not permitted to be a part of the jury. They are isolated in this way because, as a race, they are not considered to be educated enough to judge cases that are critical for a just society. This shows how the white community can’t stand to be near them so they force them away. This same action is portrayed by the society of the people in Maycomb. The colored community are forced to live by a dump like they themselves are trash. Segregation is again shown in the educational system, “American education was racially segregated in the 1930s precisely because of the white presumption that blacks were inherently incapable of learning at an advanced level” (American Decades). This belief that was present in the Maycomb society prevented colored children from having an effective education like the white children. It is devastating that many brilliant children have never been able to show their true potential because of a stereotype that has been built up and formed by generations of whites. In contrast to these societal laws that prevent blacks from gaining an effective education, the Ewell’s take their educational privileges for granted by not even attending school. Many colored children would jump at the chance but because of something as small as the color of their skin, they are not allowed. It is evident that the colored children don’t attend school because their diction and speech is lowered compared to white children. It is strange to think that the townsfolk of Maycomb think that the black community speak a “different” language when, in reality, they are both speaking English. The blacks do speak differently but only because they can’t acquire the knowledge of how to speak more intellectually. Calpurnia is an example of this theory, “that Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The