In “To kill a mockingbird” Jem begins to see how there is segregation in society, as he says “There’s four kinds of folk in this world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbours, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the negroes.”
The speech from Jem shows that Jem has started to realise that people are seperated in Maycomb county, not only by race, but also by class. The Ewells and Cunninghams have less money and are less educated so they are classed as a different kind of folk. The black community are also seperated due to their different tone of skin.
Jem’s also begins to understand the hatred between the groups in society, and this is shown through events that occur in the book. An example would be the courthouse case and how Mayella Ewell immorally claimed that Tom Robinson had raped her. Jem says “…the thing about it is our folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the coloured folks. Even though Jem does not specifically say he realises how there is hatred in Maycomb society and all of the “four groups” hate each other.
The fact that Jem says these things shows the audience that Jem is slowly maturing and he understand the segregation and hatred in his society. This make Jem feel sad and angry as “he punched his pillow” and “his face went cloudy”. From his violent actions it is clear that he is frustrated and clears his anger by punching a wall. Furthermore, I can connote from the world cloudy that his face was pale looking and expressionless, because of his anger.
The theme present in the passage is the idea of there being one group of people in the world however, there is a lot of seperation. Another message which is brought to the audience is that people are seperated because of there education and wealth. Jem states that reading and writing must be what sets people apart because the Cunninghams can’t read and write and they are thought of as a lower class, so that must be the reason. Scout disagrees with him and gives her opinion that there should be only one type of folk, folk. The overall theme presented is that social hierarchies are developed in a community because of wealth, education and race.
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