I decided post my To Kill a Mockingbird essay because it counts for posts. It is about stereotypes in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Are the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee stereotypes? In the book, most of the white southern people are racist and hate black people. Did Lee make these people like this because it is true or a stereotype? Most southern people always seem to have disliked black people and so these characters are probably not stereotypes.
The southern white people in TKAM may be stereotypes, however, a lot of southern white people at that time period and even now seem to be very supercilious and hate black people. (Page 105, Ms. Dubose, “Your father’s no better than the n*****s and trash he works for!) This means that these aren’t stereotypes they are similar to the real people. In the book, people are racist and do a lot of bad things to black people and accuse them of causing debacles. (169, Mr. Tate, I was called because some n***** raped his girl.) Riots, Unreasonable Killings, Racism, Violence and many other things occur because white people are mean and relegate black people. However, not all white people are racist.
Some white southern people do like black people or at least don’t mind them. An example is Atticus because he doesn’t do any bad things to black people, he is very amicable to them. Also Atticus tries to vindicate a black man named Tom Robinson. Atticus also has a black woman named Calpurnia come over and help out around the house and he really appreciates the help. (Page 25, Atticus, “We couldn’t operate a single day without Cal, have you ever thought of that? You think about how much Cal does for you, and you mind her, you hear?”) Also Atticus is very grateful to the black people after the trial for giving him so much. In fact he’s so grateful that he doesn’t want them to do it anymore because it is too hard on them to give away all of this food. (Page 217, Atticus, “Tell them I’m very grateful. Tell them – tell them they must never do this again. Times are too hard.”)
Jem and Scout don’t think that black people are bad people because they seem nice. Scout and Jem went to the black church with Calpurnia and they enjoyed it. (Page 118, Calpurnia, “How’d you and Mister Jem like to come to church with me tomorrow?”) They also Jem and Scout deprecate the trial and think that the trial was injustice because they know that Tom was innocent. They are also become morose after the trial when Tom is sentenced to death. (Page 215, Jem, “It ain’t right, it ain’t right Atticus.” “How could they do it, how could they?”) This proves that they are some of the white population that aren’t racist against black people.
Most people in the south are racist, however, not all are. Like some of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, for example Atticus Finch, they aren’t racist. This proves that the characters To Kill a Mockingbird are not a stereotypes because not all people in the south are racist and most are, just like in the book.