Examples Of Mob Mentality In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Events That Influenced To Kill A Mockingbird in the 1930’s

“I think that there’s just one type of folks. Folks” (Lee 259). Harper Lee uses this quote to show that this time period was a time of hate and segregation over a silly topic. Harper Lee created the novel To Kill a Mockingbird using real-life events as inspiration. In the novel, there are connections to the Jim Crow laws and mob mentality.

The first influence in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws perpetrated segregation. The Jim Crow laws were widely spread across the South. “Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. …show more content…
Mob mentality can be a good, but in this case scenario, it is awful. Mob mentality is the behavior from when a large group of people get together and is often perceived in a negative notion (Smith). People acted this way because they believed that they will have less consequences if they are in a big group of people rather than being by themselves (Smith). People feel invincible by physical harm, destruction of things and doing whatever the crowd is doing (Smith). Mob mentality occurred not only in the South as in the case of the Indiana lynching. Two black men are lynched in the background of the picture “Strange Fruit” and all of white people in the crowd look somewhat happy (Beitler). This shows mob mentality by everyone acting the same way because they do not want to be different. People broke down walls and drug the boys to the tree and tortured them on the way so they could not fight back on the tree. That is mob mentality because people did not think they could get in trouble for anything because they had the crowds support and they would not punish the whole crowd (“Strange Fruit: Anniversary of a Lynching”). In To Kill a Mockingbird, mob mentality shows when everyone says that Tom is guilty because they do not want him to be innocent. They all thought it would be wrong if they said a black person was innocent (Lee 241). There are clear references to mob mentality in To Kill a
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