Theme Of Bias In To Kill A Mockingbird

As humans, people often times let what others say determine how they view others. This type of bias can come from family members, or even town folks. To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, is based on the 1930’s. In those times, white people were intolerant of others who were different from them. This theme of being unaccepting is evident in the book. The main character, Scout, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill have to face much of the town’s biases and decide what type of people they will be. The biases posed tended to be accepted as a normality across all of the white people in Maycomb. Despite the town’s tendency to conform to those biases, Scout, Jem and Dill trusted their consciences to tell them right from wrong, and they …show more content…
These outliers are people that just do not fit into the world they live in. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout, Jem, and Dill find themselves interested in one of their town’s outliers. Mr. Arthur Radley, better known as Boo Radley was Macomb’s’ town shut in. Though Arthur is not looked down on for his race, he is looked down on for his life choices. This is partly because Arthur’s father made him out to be the family’s disgrace after he had made one wrong decision many years before Scout and Jem were even born. This poor reputation lures the curious minds of Jem, Scout, and Dill. The children started to torment Mr. Radley by playing games by his yard such as seeing who would go closest to his house. They all saw him as a monster that ate squirrels in the darkness of the night. The children only saw this because the town spread rumors that portrayed these characteristics about him. As the children grew, they started to understand Arthur, and their respect for Mr. Radley grew too. Jem notes something that he had never thought of before, “I think I 'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley 's stayed shut up in the house all this time... it 's because he wants to stay inside” (304). Jem came to this conclusion because he realized that Arthur had done nothing wrong to make him deserve the reputation he had. Scout also sees this eventually, though it takes her a little while to understand. Scout and Jem stopped seeing Mr. Radley in the same light the rest of the town and saw him for something better despite his differences. Their old opinions on him were biased and tainted by the town 's views on Arthur Radley. Despite this, the children began to respect him for the way he