One’s skin colour should not affect the terms of justice. In Harper Lee’s book “To Kill a Mocking Bird” shows forms of injustice and discrimination at its very finest. Injustice is mainly shown within the terms of racism towards Tom Robinson and the rest of the black people in Maycomb.
Discrimination appears in the novel when people show hate towards Boo Radley. In the end of the book justice prevails. In the novel “To Kill a Mocking Bird” Tom Robinson was accused of rape. Tom was innocent but since the “victim” was white and he was black, he was still accused of the wrong doing.The punishment for the crime of rape was the “death penalty”.
Atticus says in the novel “It is a sin to kill a mockingbird” This is a metaphor. A lot like Tom Robinson, Mocking birds are innocent, meaning it would be a sin to put them through pain. The Jury that juried Tom Robinson were blinded by the masks they wore of prejudice and racism. Even though Maynelle the “rape victim” had done Tom wrong he still felt sorry for her and thought she needed to be treated the way she deserved. “Yes sir, I felt sorry for her.
She seemed to try more than the rest of them. ” Tom stated. The Judge replied to Tom with “You felt sorry for her? ” The Judge was thinking that someone with as low standards as a black person should not be feel sorry for a wealthy white person. Discrimination came up in the novel mainly towards Boo Radley. “Boo was about 6 ? feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained – if you ate an animal you could never wash the blood off.
There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time. ” All of those things were untrue and unfair statements. People that don’t even know Boo or his story judged him unfairly by the things they heard. People often fear the unknown and since they knew nothing about Boo the only way they could cope was to make things up to mask what they were unsure of.
Sympathy and justice was shown at the end of the book.Mr. Underwood wrote about the past events and acknowledged Tom Robinson’s life in his letter. Justice was shown when the Sheriff along with Atticus had protected Boo Radley from getting arrested and going to jail for saving Gem and Scout.
In conclusion this book defines injustice, racism and fear of the unknown at its very finest. The book To Kill a Mocking Bird shows a lot of truth to reality. “It’s a sin to kill a mocking bird”, don’t hurt or harm someone who is innocent by all means.
