Upshots of Stigma in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
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Department of English
Abstract
The research concerns on the issue of stigmatization of the black in the white dominated society with reference to Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. It has explored the white's power exercise to redefine the black. The white reinforces power over the black and imposes derogatory images by associating with social evils to the black. The colour appearance is politicized with good and bad aspects in relation to society. The protagonist Tom is defiled as immoral and uncivilized and he is generalized to the entire black community. The white society preconceives as to the black with social evils. Due to the preconception, Tom Robinson is victim of the white society. By establishing a negative perspective upon the black, the white dominated society generates knowledge and constructs truth. The social power exercise stigmatizes and generalises the black community as inferior, uncivilized and evil. The stigma theory discusses about disability as a social perspective and race is also sign of disability in community wherein one group determines and defines other. The novel unfolds upshots of stigma through the stigmatized protagonist Tom. But the victim of stigma is not limited to the dominated black community; the dominant whites are equally affected by the upshots of the stigma they imposed on the blacks.