Atticus Finchs Statement on Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird :: essays research papers

You never re ally perceive a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and locomote around in itAtticus statement on wrong and racial discrimination characterises his good integrity and his empathetic nature. In Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus Finch is depicted as the boom opposite of what people would perceive to be a stereotypical s issuehern man living in the Deep South during the 1930s. Contrary to the volume of his fellow townspeople of Maycomb, Atticus is a man of great justice and lesson strength. He in not bigoted or antiblack and is egalitarian in his approach to all people This sort of moral integrity is what he tries to instil in his two young children, Jem and Scout, notwithstanding the bigotry and inequality surrounding them. Atticus Finch stands as a moral beacon of the town, a label which causes much friction between himself and new(prenominal) members of the Maycomb community. A clearer idea of Attic us principles can be gained by canvass and contrasting them to three other characters in the Novel, Calpurnia, cork Ewell and Aunt Alexandra. curtsey Ewell is, in essence, Atticus antithesis. If Atticus Finch represents the principled southern man so Bob Ewell veritablely represents its darker, less attractive side. He lives in a rural squalor, a bedraggled mess of a house. A poorness stricken unemployed spiteful drunkard, Bob Ewell is looked down upon by all the members of the Maycomb community. His economic situation is at a point where his windows ...were covered with greasy strips of cheesecloth to keep out varmints(p187) . In such social disarray his racial prejudices have festered to an extreme point, where he is completely blind in his loathing towards Negroes or any sort of social difference. He labels Atticus a ...nigger-loving bastard(p240), for defending Tom Robinson. This statement alone gives us a graphic insight into how his mind has become truly polluted with n arrow-mindedness. Bob Ewells loathing of others is impressed further on the reader, when he takes out his prejudices against Atticus, by attempting to kill Jem and Scout. Bob Ewell is the polar opposite of Atticus. He has no sense of justice whatsoever and his very being is the basis of prejudice itself. What is worse is there are others who share in his characteristics. To a certain extent Atticus sister Aunt Alexandra has more in commonplace with Bob Ewell than with Atticus.