Prejudices Make for a Cold Place to Live

Prejudices Make for a Cold Place to Live

Winter in its coldest and most dangerous form is relentless. The dangerous winds that blow are unyielding, the snow that accumulates will bury anything in its path, and the cold confines individuals with its frigid wrath. Like winter, people who inflict their own prejudices upon others freeze progress. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, in Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men, and in Chelsie Dort’s “When Suddenly No Lives Matter” prejudices are seen preventing fairness and equality from happening for all people.

Harper Lee brings to life a multitude of different prejudices in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird that highlights the divide taking place during the 1930s that prevented people from seeing each other as people. One of the highlights that Lee brings to life is class discrimination through the different students at the school. Scout Finch, the protagonist of the story, is the leader of her peers because she is educated. Scout has to tell her new teacher, Ms. Caroline, why Walter Cunningham refuses to take her quarter. Scout states, “Walter’s one of the Cunninghams… Cunninghams never took anything they can’t pay back…They don’t have much, but they get along on it” (Lee 22).  Her understanding of the people and being the voice for them shows how well respected she is for her wits. Walter Cunningham on the other side shows that he has been hit hard with the times but makes do with what he has. His pouring of molasses all over his food shows proof of how his eating habits are beneath that of Scout’s standards when she reprimands him by saying, “He’s gone and drowned his dinner in syrup” (Lee 27).  At this comment, Walter bows his head in remorse from being called out for his lacking social skills. Burris Ewell represents the financially distraught and the lowest of classes.

The class that has spite for anyone who is in a better social position than themselves. Burris is easily angered when anyone of authority tries to tell him what to do. When Ms. Caroline tells him to go home and wash his hair for fear of the cooties spreading, Burris insults her by saying “…no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c’n make me do nothin’!” (Lee 31). Burris knows that he can’t change his appearance because he has no money or means to do so, so instead of showing embarrassment like Walter, he retaliates with anger and attacks Ms. Caroline personally to mask his own insecurities. Scout’s distaste in Walter’s table manners shows the upper class discriminating against the middle class, Ms. Caroline’s naiveness about Burris’ position shows her discrimination for the lowest class, and Scout’s voice of reason for those who are beneath her shows the power that the upper class has on the lesser classes.

Prejudice is the central focus in Reginald Rose’s play Twelve Angry Men. Rose uses the jurors #3 and #10 specifically to show how these individuals’ preconceived notions about people from the slums as terrible people ultimately affects their decision on if the defendant who is from the slums is guilty of a crime that was committed. Juror #10 goes on a rant about the people from the slums and states, “Human life don’t mean as much to them as it does to us…if somebody gets killed, so somebody gets killed…I’m speaking my piece, and you listen to me! They’re no good. There’s not a one of ‘em who’s any good” (Rose 27). His statement of his life being more valuable than someone’s from the slums shows his lack of sympathy for someone who lives in a tough neighborhood. He also goes on to pool all people from the slums as “no good”. This thinking of his prevents him from seeing the evidence that shows there is a reasonable doubt that this defendant could, in fact, be innocent of the crime. Juror #3 has his mind made up and refuses to listen to anyone else’s reasoning because he wants to see the defendant burn. When he is even called out for his satanic mannerisms and asked by juror #8 if he’d “like to pull the switch” he responds with, “For this kid? You bet I’d like to pull the switch!” (Rose 21). This extreme response shows that this juror isn’t seeing the defendant as a person anymore but as an objective, and the objective is to see the kid die. Both juror #10 and juror #3 have their own biases that avert them from the truth of the matter, and that truth is there is a reasonable doubt that this defendant is not guilty of the crime.

When it comes to falling in love, no one ever expects it to be a complicated matter once you find the love of your life and then seal the deal. The hard part of fishing in the sea of millions is over. But this wasn’t the case for Chelsie Dort. She found out that her life would be much more difficult because of people’s biased views of her husband’s blackness would enlighten her to how racially prejudice people can be.