To Kill A Mockingbird Social Prejudice Analysis

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As part of a bildungsroman novel, Scout learns to discard her prejudice against all people. Earlier in the novel, scout harbours her own personal social prejudice against Boo Radley. She has this prejudice based on the stereotypes placed on Boo by her town and her fear of the unknown of the Radley house. Atticus has a maxim that he shares with Scout, telling her to “consider things from his point of view” in order to understand people. We see Scout grow when she acknowledges her father’s lesson and sees things from Boo Radley’s point of view. By doing this she sees Boo as a real person and her feelings of prejudice disappear. Scout has learnt not to judge people based off prejudice and stereotypes and instead try to understand them as people, an essential life lesson learnt.…show more content…
Scouts initial idea of courage is physical bravery, but the characterisation of Mrs Dubose reveals a different kind of courage. Atticus tells Jem and Scout that they have to read to Mrs Dubose, an old woman who has courageously withdrawn herself from morphine in order to die “beholden to nothing and nobody”. Atticus explains that the courage Mrs Dubose displays is “real courage” and defines it as knowing your “licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what”. Scout learns from Mrs Dubose that there is more than one kind of courage, and she learns to see this courage in others such as the courage Mr Underwood had when he wrote an article on Tom Robinson, despite going against the town’s attitudes. She has acquired the ability to discern ‘real courage’ in
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