Race and Racism in Literature: To Kill a Mockingbird - Research Paper Example

Topic:  Written in the 1940s, the book “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee was set at a time when racial intolerance was at an all time high. It might have been penned when civil rights were not as encouraged as they are today. However, despite granting greater equal opportunities to people of color and other hitherto marginalized section of the population, we still have lingering racial prejudice. The book “To Kill a Mocking bird,” exposes the prejudice, ignorance and injustice that was prevalent in the south in the 1940s when Harper Lee penned it. This however does not mean that these three vices have since been condemned in the dust bin of history. If anything, there is still simmering racial discrimination and other injustices toward the black community in a number of states and especially in the South where it was set. The book provides overwhelming evidence to suggest that that the racial prejudice of the 1950s in America and especially the south, was many times over the residual racial prejudice that we see today. For instance, Mrs. Fallow opinion to the effect that blacks are dangerous people can never hold any water today. Her statement to the effect that “looks like we’re fighting a losing battle….we can try to educate them till our face turn blue, we can even try until we drop to make them Christian, but there is no lady who is safe in her bed these nights (Gladwell, 1),” would not only seem unfortunate but completely out of place in this time and age. Just like a number of cases involving high flying personalities have exposed in recent time, there appear to be two type of justice in the book; justice for the rich and justice for the poor. One of the things that the rape case facing Tom Robinson reveals is that a person stands a better chance of literary getting away with any crime if only he/she can afford a high-powered advocate, which is a common phenomenon in our times if the highly-publicized case of O.J. Simpson is anything to go by. Looking at the O.J. Simpson case and Tom Robinson case in the book, one cannot fail to see the bias cutting across both cases despite the vast period between the 1930s when the book is set, and the 2000s. In fact, while the O.J. Simpson set the limit for American bias in later days, the Tom Robinson’s case can be said to be setting the same in the 1950s. It also appear as if O.J. Simpson’s attorney words “the color of justice is green (Heath, 48)” would still have held water then. It is interesting to note that the worship and moral elasticity for the wealthy within the society is not a new phenomenon as has been evidenced in the manner in which the rich are treated in the book. This can be seen in the manner in which Harper portrays the reverence and glamour that greeted the likes of the Cunningham and other families of substance in a highly stratified social structure in the book (Heath, 25). The deep lines of societal stratification might be no more in this time but the kind of treatment that the wealthy appears to be receiving seems almost identical with the one Harper describes in his book. In the book we are told that “Jean and Jem Flinch lived in the 1930s in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. The story goes on to explain how their upbringing was characterized by unending adventure that brought great joy in their lives. The strict moral childhood, educational importance, and the low crime rate in this small town all contributed to a rich childhood. Unfortunately for our kids, this kind of childhood is alien in this time and age. These experience features to upbringing have changes tremendously over the vast time period between 1930s and now. There is no doubt that the moral upbringing they got is very much different from those of our times. To appreciate this, you just have to look at the moral decay in our kids nowadays. It is almost impossible to see them having the kind of adventure we see Jean, Jem and Dinn. This is one aspect of the paradigm shift in our society today that seems to put more emphasis on formal education as opposed to informal education. This overemphasis on formal education has partially been contributed to the various laws that have been enacted in a thin-veiled attempt at keeping kids well educated. The level and nature of crime in the book is in all aspect child’s play when compared to the massive crime rate in our neighborhood. Unlike in the 1940s when the story of this book is set, racial prejudice has subsides in the United States. There is no doubt that much has been done to deal with this vice in such a way that open racism is now politically incorrect as opposed to the 1940s. A demonstration of the changed times can be seen in the election of a black president which is a major step in the right direction from the 1940s when African Americans were neither allowed to vote nor serve on juries, or even enjoy a number of basic civil liberties (Wilson, 45). Another thing that seems to manifest itself in the book is the intense struggle by black and other marginalized groups to break free from the shackles of discrimination and all its manifestations. One cannot fail to notice the daily struggles towards self-assertion that African Americans are involved in on a daily basis which is probably due to the injustices and discrimination that they are subjected to by the system. This struggle appears more of a part of life and an individual effort at asserting his/her individual rights. This can be explained by the way some people like Tom decided to assert themselves while others succumb to a life of oppression, discrimination, racism and poverty (Wilson, 16). This is quite different from today’s institutionalized efforts by the entire American society at fighting the few remaining patches of these vices. There is no doubt that the them-versus-us approach that characterized the struggle in the 1950s has been replaced by a more inclusive approach (Banks, 248). Though we still have parches of poverty in our society today, the kind of poverty that Harper describe in his book is extreme to be blamed on the Great Depression alone. Some of the pointers of this extreme poverty include; barefooted school children, ‘shotgun shack’, school children carrying their food in molasses buckets, “first purchase” and its unpainted and unceiled interior, kerosene lamps as a source of lighting, small abodes with scant furnishing for the negroes and the few poor whites, among others (Banks, 251). There is no disputing the fact that the society has advanced to another level where this kind of poverty has been erased from the face of American society. Another observation that can be made from the book is the monopolization of factors of production by the whites at the detriment of the African American population. This can be seen in the fact that nowhere in the book do we hear of a black plantation owner or blacks being employed by a fellow blacks either as a maid, cook, gardener or a picker in his/her plantations. In fact, one cannot fail to appreciate the strides that the United States has made in entrenching equity and equality after reading this book. The deep superstitious within the black community that is manifested in a number of places in the book is obviously alien in this time and age. For instance, a statement like “negroes wouldn’t pass the Radley house at night (Lee, 23)” which carried a lot of weight then would not only have zero influence on the way people conduct themselves today but would also be laughed off in this time and age. The same fate will befall Jem’s prescription on how to avoid having your breath sucked by somebody else which involves uttering the words “Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don’t suck my breath (Lee, 62)”, which is another stereotypes that Calpurnia dismiss as “nigger-talk.” This same contempt would also greet the stereotypes surrounding hot steams and their supposed dead persons who had failed to make it in heaven. The three examples reveal the major strides that the American society has made in freeing itself from stereotypes. This book also exposes high level of illiteracy in America and especially among the blacks. This is manifested in among others; the fact that Mayella had only three years of formal education while her other siblings had absolutely no formal education to talk about. More evidence of this state of affair can be seen in the Ewell’s “tradition of turning up for the first day of the first grade, and then never turning up again (Lee, 36)”. Works Cited Banks, L., Taunya. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962): Lawyering in an Unjust Society. Films of the 1960s. Retrieved on 28th April 2012 http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1444&cont ext=fac_pubs Gladwell, Malcolm. The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the Limits of Southern Liberalism. New Yorker. 10th August 2009 Heath, G., D., Samuel. To Kill a Mocking: A Critique on Behalf of Children. New York: iUniverse, 2007. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mocking Bird. New York: Qanita, 1960 Wilson, E., Charles. Race and Racism in Literature. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005 Read More