Joshua Ichiriu
Survey Comp/Lit 3rd Period
Mr. Smith
11/17/17
How Power can control lives
“I shut my eyes. Judge Taylor was polling the jury. ‘Guilty… guilty … guilty … guilty…’ ”(Lee 282) Judge Taylor has just released his judgment to the world and left Tom Robinson’s life in pieces. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, people with more power use it towards their advantage. Bob Ewell, a deceitful White American man, uses the power that he holds in an attempt to send a hard-working, African American man, Tom Robinson, to jail for raping his daughter. Tom Robinson is sent to jail for something that he did not do, and the people in Maycomb know that. Scout, the main character of the book, lives in a time of social inequality and …show more content…
African Americans were socially segregated from the white people and were frowned upon. The African Americans have an amount of power which is close to nothing, where power is heavily given to the white people in society. In the book, Bob Ewell, a drunk, poor, man, has more power than Tom Robinson because he is white. Tom Robinson in the book is convicted of raping and beating up Bob Ewell’s daughter, Mayella Ewell. Tom Robinson has done nothing wrong but people were scared to tell society that he is falsely accused. No black man has ever won a case in the history of Maycomb County, so the chances of Tom winning his case were slim even after the proof shown by his lawyer, Atticus Finch. “I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man….”(Lee 279) Letting Tom Robinson's win would ruin their messed up “tradition” of not letting black people win cases, because they wanted to avoid the Caucasian members of Maycomb questioning the jury, they voted against letting him free. Another time you can identify that power can be used to harass somebody is when Bob Ewell follows Tom Robinson’s wife on her way to work. “All the way to the house, Helen said, she heard a soft voice behind her crooning foul words.” (Lee 334) Although the case is over, and Tom has been assassinated, Bob Ewell still has a flaring hatred for members of the …show more content…
In former Southern Alabama, Jim Crow laws were laws put in place to separate African American rights from White American rights, and played a large role in forming the government of the majority of the southern states. One of Georgia's Jim Crows from the Article Examples of Jim Crow laws, by the Jackson Sun Newspaper, states that, “It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void.” This does not permit a black person to be married to a white person, which prevents the mixing of the two races, and also reduces the power of African Americans greatly by making their power stay at the same position, and reduces rights slightly to the white race. In a way, this leaves African American women at the same state of power that they are in their entire lives because if an African American woman marries a white man, then she automatically gains more power because she married a white man, who has more power than all African Americans. This is the power that the government has, and uses it to constrict rules on the people that lived in their state. Jim Crow laws segregated Caucasians from African Americans in many ways that left African Americans with close to no power. People even questioned the state of physical health and wondered whether or not it matters for somebody life to be saved or to stay away from them because they are a different
Survey Comp/Lit 3rd Period
Mr. Smith
11/17/17
How Power can control lives
“I shut my eyes. Judge Taylor was polling the jury. ‘Guilty… guilty … guilty … guilty…’ ”(Lee 282) Judge Taylor has just released his judgment to the world and left Tom Robinson’s life in pieces. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, people with more power use it towards their advantage. Bob Ewell, a deceitful White American man, uses the power that he holds in an attempt to send a hard-working, African American man, Tom Robinson, to jail for raping his daughter. Tom Robinson is sent to jail for something that he did not do, and the people in Maycomb know that. Scout, the main character of the book, lives in a time of social inequality and …show more content…
African Americans were socially segregated from the white people and were frowned upon. The African Americans have an amount of power which is close to nothing, where power is heavily given to the white people in society. In the book, Bob Ewell, a drunk, poor, man, has more power than Tom Robinson because he is white. Tom Robinson in the book is convicted of raping and beating up Bob Ewell’s daughter, Mayella Ewell. Tom Robinson has done nothing wrong but people were scared to tell society that he is falsely accused. No black man has ever won a case in the history of Maycomb County, so the chances of Tom winning his case were slim even after the proof shown by his lawyer, Atticus Finch. “I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man….”(Lee 279) Letting Tom Robinson's win would ruin their messed up “tradition” of not letting black people win cases, because they wanted to avoid the Caucasian members of Maycomb questioning the jury, they voted against letting him free. Another time you can identify that power can be used to harass somebody is when Bob Ewell follows Tom Robinson’s wife on her way to work. “All the way to the house, Helen said, she heard a soft voice behind her crooning foul words.” (Lee 334) Although the case is over, and Tom has been assassinated, Bob Ewell still has a flaring hatred for members of the …show more content…
In former Southern Alabama, Jim Crow laws were laws put in place to separate African American rights from White American rights, and played a large role in forming the government of the majority of the southern states. One of Georgia's Jim Crows from the Article Examples of Jim Crow laws, by the Jackson Sun Newspaper, states that, “It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void.” This does not permit a black person to be married to a white person, which prevents the mixing of the two races, and also reduces the power of African Americans greatly by making their power stay at the same position, and reduces rights slightly to the white race. In a way, this leaves African American women at the same state of power that they are in their entire lives because if an African American woman marries a white man, then she automatically gains more power because she married a white man, who has more power than all African Americans. This is the power that the government has, and uses it to constrict rules on the people that lived in their state. Jim Crow laws segregated Caucasians from African Americans in many ways that left African Americans with close to no power. People even questioned the state of physical health and wondered whether or not it matters for somebody life to be saved or to stay away from them because they are a different