To Kill A Mockingbird Prejudice Essay

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee argues that prejudice can affect people's decisions. She uses people like the Cunninghams, Ewells, Aunt Alexandra and Tom Robinson to develop her argument.
One event that shows that prejudice can affect people's decisions, is when Miss Caroline, the school teacher tried to give a quarter to Walter Cunningham because he didn’t have a lunch. “Went to her desk and opened her purse. “Here’s a quarter” she said to Walter. “Go and eat downtown today. You can pay me back tomorrow.” Walter shook his head. “Nome thank you ma'am.”(Lee 25). This shows that prejudice can affect people's decisions because prejudice is when someone makes an opinion formed without knowing the facts. When Miss Caroline tries to make Walter take the quarter and she dosen’t know that the Cunninghams will not take anything they can’t pay back. Another place in the story that supports this is when Miss Caroline tries to make Burris Ewell to go home and warsh his hair because he had cooties (lice). “Well, Burris,” said Miss Caroline, “I think we’d better excuse you for the rest of the afternoon. I want you to go home and wash your hair.”(Lee 35). In this scene, prejudice can affect people's decisions is shown because Miss Caroline doesn't know that the Ewell’s only come to school one day (the first

In the time era that this book was wrote in, the Great Depression the towns were still segregated and a lot of people were very poor like the Cunninghams and the Ewells. Her argument is still relevant but it is not to the extent as it was in the Great Depression era. Lee makes this argument to show the reader what it was like in that era.
As we can see Harper Lee clearly develops a particular argument in To Kill a Mockingbird which is that prejudice can affect people's decisions and that she uses people like the Cunninghams, Ewells, Aunt Alexandra and Tom Robinson to develop her