Sexism in to Kill a Mockingbird Essay

In to Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee tires to expose the truth about sexism and womanhood through the behaviors and motivations of Miss Maudie. Miss Maudie impacted the finch family in to kill a mockingbird, especially scout by giving her constructive criticisms about growing up as a female, like being approached by sexism. Miss maudie atkinson was a widow and lives across the street from the finch family. She likes to garden her flowers and she speaks what’s on her mind.

At the beginning of the book, Scout acts like a tomboy, for example she dresses, behaves and fights like one (insert quote). Scout never really had a motherly influence as she was growing up because her mom died when she was young, and she was raised in a house with two men. The closest she ever had to a mother figure was Calpurnia and Aunt Alexandra, but one summer day she become friends with her neighbor from across the street, Miss Maudie. Scout starts getting excluded by Jem and Dill because they wanted to do their own activities, such as spying on Boo Radley, and they thought she wasn’t cut out to do that with them because she was a girl, so she starts spending more time with Miss Maudie. Throughout the book, Scout is always addressed that she doesn’t act like a lady, so Miss Maudie influences Scout’s growing understanding of what it means to be a southern lady and how to act like a lady. (insert quote).

One of the key concepts that Harper lee had put forwards was that women were weak and frail. For example, Atticus explains jokingly, why womens should not serve on the jury. “…I guess its to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s. Besides, I doubt if we’d ever get a complete case tried-the ladies be interrupting to ask questions” (Lee 188). In the book Aunt Alexandra always told Scout to put on dresses and be around other girls because that was the lady thing to do. The typical lady would be inside the house cooking food and caring for the children while the husband is doing the major works, but Miss Maudie wasn’t like that, she liked being outdoors and doing what she liked. (insert quote). In to Kill A Mockingbird there was a lot of sexism because, the book was written in the 1950s and in Alabama women were not considered equal to men and their opinion wasn’t validated.

To conclude the impact of Miss Maudie on the Finch family and the book, it show:

the actions and values of sexism and womanhood taught Scout or the reader that this topic was a very sensitive topic to talk about in that period of time. Miss Maudie plays a big part of Scouts life and she was her mother figure to teach her about everything.

Cite this page