Imagery In To Kill A Mockingbird
White versus Colored?
“Everybody's scared for their ass. There aren't too many people ready to die for racism. They'll kill for racism but they won't die for racism,” Florynce R. Kennedy, who established the Media Workshop to advertise with people of different colors, once said. The sad part is that Florynce is right. Not many people in the 1930s would be willing to sacrifice their own life to stand up for racism. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses ethos, characterization, and imagery to show how the setting of Maycomb gave harsh tones to the racism in Alabama. Lee characterizes the Ewells as white trash to uncover how most of the white citizens act in Maycomb. The Ewells are disrespectful to any man in Maycomb, thus showing harsh …show more content…
The imagery gives you a picture in your head of how the town of Maycomb might look like and how the people judge. When the Tom Robinson case was about to start, the Negroes had to wait for the white people to go in the main level and upstairs before themselves proceeding to fill in seats (Lee 218). This action of the Negroes shows that they do not have the right away like the whites, even though they are just as much citizens as the Whites in Maycomb. As Tom Robinson was getting questioned by Mr. Gilmer, he was constantly being called ‘boy’, and getting sneered at (Lee 266). None of the jury members or the main level found anything wrong with this because that is how the African Americans are treated. They are always being degraded because of the color of their skin. Even Jem, Atticus’s son, believes that the Negroes are on the bottom of the barrel. When explaining the kind of folks in Maycomb to Scout, he insists that there is the normal kind, the ones like the Cunninghams, the ones like the Ewells, and the Negroes, way down at the bottom (Lee 302). Children like Jem listen to the adults, so they start getting ideas about how to treat the Negroes, and unfortunately it is the wrong way. Along with showing how African Americans were treated differently than the whites, To Kill a Mockingbird also shows how characters would act toward
“Everybody's scared for their ass. There aren't too many people ready to die for racism. They'll kill for racism but they won't die for racism,” Florynce R. Kennedy, who established the Media Workshop to advertise with people of different colors, once said. The sad part is that Florynce is right. Not many people in the 1930s would be willing to sacrifice their own life to stand up for racism. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses ethos, characterization, and imagery to show how the setting of Maycomb gave harsh tones to the racism in Alabama. Lee characterizes the Ewells as white trash to uncover how most of the white citizens act in Maycomb. The Ewells are disrespectful to any man in Maycomb, thus showing harsh …show more content…
The imagery gives you a picture in your head of how the town of Maycomb might look like and how the people judge. When the Tom Robinson case was about to start, the Negroes had to wait for the white people to go in the main level and upstairs before themselves proceeding to fill in seats (Lee 218). This action of the Negroes shows that they do not have the right away like the whites, even though they are just as much citizens as the Whites in Maycomb. As Tom Robinson was getting questioned by Mr. Gilmer, he was constantly being called ‘boy’, and getting sneered at (Lee 266). None of the jury members or the main level found anything wrong with this because that is how the African Americans are treated. They are always being degraded because of the color of their skin. Even Jem, Atticus’s son, believes that the Negroes are on the bottom of the barrel. When explaining the kind of folks in Maycomb to Scout, he insists that there is the normal kind, the ones like the Cunninghams, the ones like the Ewells, and the Negroes, way down at the bottom (Lee 302). Children like Jem listen to the adults, so they start getting ideas about how to treat the Negroes, and unfortunately it is the wrong way. Along with showing how African Americans were treated differently than the whites, To Kill a Mockingbird also shows how characters would act toward