9-22 assignment

Although the story of To Kill a Mockingbird  is set in the 1930s, the message is still as vibrant today. The message that Harper Lee was telling was that of prejudice, which has been around for thousands of years and no real hope in sight of eradicating it. According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, prejudice means, "to injure or damage by some judgment or action". Does that sound like something that happens in this day and age? Yes, most certainly, which makes this message timeless! The crux of the plot line is based on the racial prejudice that was aimed at Tom Robinson. Tom was accused falsely of a crime, but when he went to trial, he did not stand a chance of being acquitted due to the pre-judgment of the town and the court. Throughout the book, there are other examples of prejudice. One of those examples is the opinion that Scout and Jem, the narrator and her brother, have of their adult neighbor Boo Radley. The children are convinced that Boo is either dead and has been stuffed up his chimney (yikes!), or if he is alive, he could cause great harm to them. The irony of their prejudged ideas about Boo is that Boo is not only alive and well, but he ends up saving their lives and killing their dangerous stalker! The timelessness of the plot is that our society is so steeped in prejudice that we don't even see it. How many times do I prejudge people based on things that don't tell me anything about them? Things such as the color of their skin, the color of their hair or how many tattoos they have. The first step in dealing with prejudice is identifying it in myself.