Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird and Goin' Someplace Special Anonymous 10th Grade

Prejudice is a pre-judgement formed about something or someone - but it is more than this as well? This complex idea is highlighted in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and the picture book Goin’ Someplace Special by Patricia McKissack (illustrated by Jerry Pinkney). The picture book is set in 1950s Nashville and features a young African American girl named Tricia Ann, who experiences much prejudice and eventually reaches a place of integration - the public library. Both these texts offer deeper ideas about prejudice, that challenge our past and present society.

Prejudice is a group-held perception that marginalises one. In To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the main characters who experience prejudice and is isolated from the rest of Maycomb is Arthur ('Boo') Radley. At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout explain to Dill who Boo is, or at least what they have been told. ‘People said he existed but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night…’ The repitition of ‘people said’ emphasises that these anecdotes are purely based on rumour, not fact. Maycomb’s chracterisation of Arthur is that he is inhuman, hence the derogatory term 'Boo Radley' is used. Lee...