To Kill a Mockingbird
By Rebekah Sletten
There is good in everyone.
People don't always to the right thing. They are only human, so sometimes they aren't going to make the best choices. An example of this would be the jury during the trial. Some of the people on the jury liked black people but they didn't stand up for Tom Robinson. That doesn't make them bad people, they just made a bad choice. Another example would be Bob Ewell. He didn't make every good choices when it came to his behavior or how he treated his kids but in the end there was still a little good in him. He treated and responded to situations how he saw fit. Even if you had to dig down really really really deep.
Stereotyping
There are many examples of stereotyping in To Kill a Mockingbird. One example would be when Aunt Alexandria refuses to let scout wear her overalls. She puts her into uncomfortable dresses throughout the whole book. It was really a big moment for scout when at the end of the book and Aunt Alexandria told Scout to put her overalls on. They were all in a moment of panic and it showed that we it really came down to it didn't matter what she wore. Another example would be that if you treated the Negro people with respect you were a Negro lover. The people that fell under this stereotype would be Atticus when he represented Tom Robinson and Raymond Dalphus living with a black women and had her children. The racism in this book is also an example of stereotyping. They assume that black people aren't good enough to be held at the same social standard as the white people. They were treated like they were stupid just because some of them were undereducated.
How They Relate
These topics relate because even though the people in their community and family were sometimes rude and stereotypical they were still basically good. They might not have been the nicest or politest at times they still cared about the family. An example of this would be Aunt Alexandra. She was mean to scout about what we wore. In the end she did what she did because she cared about scout and wanted what she believed was the best for her.