To Kill a Mockingbird 3

In “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the plot continues to become thicker and thicker. At the beginning, Jem and Scout had fun with their friend Dill in the summer trying to coax Boo Radley from his house. But as the story progressed, more issues of racism came into play. The trial, as unfair as it seems, was a normal occurrence in the south. But Scout is a character that is against the racism, even just in her town and she knows what is unfair.

Scout’s Teacher, Miss Gates, teaches her class a lesson about Democracy and Dictatorship using World War 2 and Hitler as her example. But what made me physically angry at her was when she begins to talk about how because we are a democracy, we are fair to everyone. She says, “Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody.” Wait a minute there. She said that America does not believe in persecuting anybody while all of America and even herself are rude to African Americans all of the time. She lives during the civil rights movement! It is especially not right to say this after the trial that has just taken place. I do not think that it is right for her to be saying that then, but maybe she could get away with that now. But even saying this today would be risky because not everyone is treated fairly. This scene happens while the students are reading current events, but Miss Gates obviously doesn’t know about current events.

Because Miss Gates thought that it was right to say that America treated everyone fairly during the civil rights movement, it makes me think that she is not the only one. Maybe people didn’t include persecuting blacks as unfair treatment. The way I suppose the people think is “they deserve it so it doesn’t count.” But as we know, this is not only unfair, but also untrue. The fact that Scout catches this mistake and asks her father about it says that maybe Miss Gates is off her rocker, but at least some people have some sense.

Miss Gates is an angering character in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Even before she said this, Scout never really liked her. Scout seems like she is opposite from the community in her beliefs and her style. She does not believe in persecution of blacks and she does not want to become what her society calls a “lady”. So in some ways, she is not a very realistic character, but I think she relates to girls in modern times.