There are many examples of prejudice against Tom in the book. We see one example on page 79 after it is revealed that Atticus will represent Tom. Scout's classmate, Cecil Jacobs, and others are teasing her in the schoolyard about the fact that her father is defending a black man. Cecil tells her that his parents said "your daddy was a disgrace an‘ that n----r oughta hang from the water-tank!” This seems to be a pretty typical attitude among Maycomb's residents, and this incident foreshadows the strain that the trial will put on Jem and Scout even as it helps them to grapple with their own feelings about race and prejudice. Shortly thereafter, Atticus describes the effects of prejudice on the trial when he describes the difficulty of the case to his brother Jack on page 91:
The only thing we’ve got is a black man’s word against the Ewells‘. The evidence boils down to you-did—I-didn’t. The jury couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells'...
Tom's trial is of course full of examples of prejudice. Bob Ewell says that he " I knowed who [Tom] was, all right, lived down yonder in that n----r-nest..." (177). After Tom tells the prosecutor Mr. Gilmer that he felt sorry for Mayella, Gilmer makes a mockery of the idea that a black man could ever be in a position to feel sorry for a white woman, saying "[y]ou felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?" (201). Gilmer's cross-examination is full of racist condescension, and as Attitcus predicted before the trial even started, the racial attitudes of 1930s Alabama prevailed in the jury's decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment