Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird And The Report

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In the world we live in Racism is an everyday struggle for someone who doesn’t fit into society’s version of the social norm. The book To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee and The report in the Scottsborro case by Miss. Hollace Ransdell pull us back into time where racism was a nationwide problem, especially in the south, and the authors of both pieces of literature try to portray this in an effective manner. To kill a mockingbird and The report on the Scottsborro case reflect the evils of racism, peer pressure, and social class through a vivid use of point of view. To begin, To kill a mockingbird doesn’t portray racism through point of view as well as The report on the Scottsborro case because To kill a mockingbird only shows one point …show more content…
In to kill a mocking bird Atticus tries to explain to Jem why the jury took so long to come to a verdict when everyone knew what the verdict would be anyway. “’ You might like to know that there was one fellow who took considerable wearing down-in the beginning he was rarin’ for an outright acquittal’” (222). In this quote a man who held his ground was persuaded to do something he knew wasn’t right through peer pressure. You are only hearing what Scout caught of the situation so you don’t hear anyone elses point of view. In The Report on the Scottsborro case two girls get stuck on a train with a group of negro boys and when exiting the train policemen are waiting and expecting there to have been trouble. “…They made no charges against the Negroes, until after they were taken into custody; that their charges were made after they had found out the spirit of the armed men that came to meet the train and catch the Negroes, and that they were swept into making their wholesale accusation against the Negroes merely by assenting to the charges as presented by the men who seized the nine negroes” (85-90). The girls didn’t make any accusations until they felt pressured to make some accusation by the armed men that were waiting for them when they got off the train. This cleary shows the use of peer …show more content…
In To kill a mockingbird Jem tries to explain to scout why their family isn’t like everyone else’s. “’…There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, There’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes’” (226). Here, Jem states four classes that can be recongnized by the general population of Maycomb County; four completely different social classes. The point of view used here is very effective because it shows someone’s opinion of the social classes that they can recognize. In The Report on the Scottsborro case the author goes into each of the two girl’s lives. The first girl that she explores is Ruby Bates. “As has been said, it is from the most economically of the mill workers of Huntsville that the two girls in the Scottsborro case come” (333-334). This quote shows that the girls come from the lowest class of citizens but because the author is only getting the girls social class it doesn’t give the reader a very good idea of where the lower class stands in comparison to the other social classes in the specific town. To kill and mockingbird does an effective job at showing social class through point of view, but The Report on the Scottsborro case does a much more thorough job using point of view to show racism and peer

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