How does the setting show the idea of prejudice?

Three settings that show this:

Layout of the town

Court house

Finch house

Introduction: what is prejudice? talk about the time period and the racial activisam in that time (the 60s) and why harper lee wanter to wright about it. How she uses the setting of maycomb and other smaller settings within it to show prejudice and spicific aspects of predjudice.

Layout of the town: class prejudice

The separation of the classes and races in the town shows prejudice, with the rich white people living in the center and the lower classes on the edges with the black people as far away as possible. The layout of the town shows the separation of the classes and the class prejudice.

• The spatial separation of the cases emphasizes the financial and social separation of them too. This draws attention to the segregation of class.
• The wealthier people and the people in the highest social class in maycomb are found nearing the center of town and as you move out the class sems to get lower and lower. This shows how the rich don’t really want to have to poor and the blacks near them and how they have more access to utilities such as shops and running water.
• Each class group seem to stay together and not mix too much with the others. All the blacks are in one place, all the townies are in one place and all the farmers are in one place too. This shows how they dwell together and don’t venture out of there class group. Relate to schindler’s list how they kept the jews far away from the main town as they did not want to see them or have any association with them. This also applies in a sense that they did not like to see the effects of their class prejudice, the poor living conditions caused by this were better out of sight, out of mind.

Quotes:

“There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbours, there’s the kind like the cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the ewells down at the dump, and the negros”

“Naw jem, i think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”- scout

“Jean Louise, there is no doubt in my mind that they’re good folks. But they’re not our kind of folks….you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he’ll never be like Jem.”

“if there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of there was to despise each other?”

Court house: racism

The courthouse is the one place where everyone should be equal but in the town of maycomb that is not the case. Black people are faced with a large disadvantage when it comes to good representation in court and an unbiased jury. The courthouse shows the racism of maycomb.

• Harper lee inspired thought in the reader by contrasting the expectation of a fair court to the reality of a corrupt one by showing how tom is obviously innocent but is still found guilty.
• Harper lee shows how mayella used tom then threw him away when he was no longer useful to her and she uses the courthouse to show this when she is doing her testimony. Relate this to the horse in animal farm.
• Harper lee shows how the community dismisses the events of the tom robinson case as an ordinary thing. What mrs gates says when leaving the courthouse. The only thing out of the ordinary for them and the reason they all turned up was because he was actually being defended. This makes the reader realize how unjust it is with the dismissal of the citizens.

Quotes:

“She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.”

“The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.”

“Our courts have their faults as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal”

“it’s time somebody taught them a lesson, they were getting way above themselves an the next thing they think they can do is marry us”- mrs gates

Finch house: sexisam

The finch house is usually a fair environment but with the arrival of aunt alexandra we see sexisam introduced with alexandra trying to control scouts behaviour and clothing choices. Through this we see the typical status of women during the 1930’s. They are gossiping hypocrites who condone racism and class prejudice.

• Scout is constantly made to feel like she should not be a tomboy. This sexisam in her own house causes scout stress. The character of scout is lickable and the reader tends to side with her against the sexisam without even relising. Relate to the golden cumpass and the chraicter lyra who’s mother trys to tame her wild nature, which is the facter of the chraicter which makes her likeable.
• Aunt alexandra in unemployed and therefor shows the sexisam of the workplace in those days. During the great depression not many women were employed and if they were they were paid less than men. The way alexandra tries to get calpurnia fired just so she can have something to do all day (the cooking cleaning and child minding) emphasizes this.
• When aunt alexandra hosts the missionary societies tea party we see the hypocrisy and pettiness of the women in maycomb. With not much to do during the day they stoop to gossip for entertainment. This shows sexisam because it shows the roles females were pushed into through the hardship of the time period and society’s expectations of them. Relate this to mythology and the portrayal of women there.

Quotes:

“Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born”

“I could not possibly hope to be a lady if i wore breachers; when i said i could do nothing wearing a dress, she said i shouldn’t be doing things that require pants”

Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere, but this feeling was what Aunt Alexandra called being “spoiled.”

I was more at home in my father’s world. People like Mr. Heck Tate did not trap you with innocent questions to make fun of you; even Jem was not highly critical unless you said something stupid.

no matter how undelectable they were, there was something about them that I instinctively liked… they weren’t— “Hypocrites, Mrs. Perkins, born hypocrites,” Mrs. Merriweather was saying.

His food doesn’t stick going down does it?

She’s a faithful member of this family and you’ll simply have to accept things the way they are.”

Conclution:

Prejudice has always been here…