preview

Is Fear More Powerful Than Reason And Intelligence?

Better Essays

Is Fear More Powerful than Reason and Intelligence?
An analysis of fear in To Kill a Mockingbird

Jake Portnoff
ENG2D-2
Mr.Whitebread
To Kill a Mockingbird - ISP
People often fear what they don 't understand. Evolutionary psychology can be traced back millions of years, when fear helped keep man from peril. Avoiding the unknown created a sense of security. Consequently, since the beginning of mankind, our instincts have developed to be perilous of the familiar. Fear of the unknown causes people to become narrow-minded and ignorant of the unfamiliar, and how people behave when they believe something will happen even though there is no basis for their assumptions. This ideology directly correlates to Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Throughout the story, the townspeople are challenged by fear, which causes them to go against each other. The fear of change within the town associates with racism and causes the white majority to victimize a discerned black minority. The whites have developed such a strong stereotype amongst the blacks that they have become unmindful of what’s right. Boo Radley is one of the best examples of someone who is unfairly targeted because of Maycomb’s fear of the unknown. His problems with the law result in isolation within the Radley house, and because he refuses to leave his house, the townspeople are terrified and make accusations. During Tom Robinson’s trial, Atticus used logic, reason and intelligence, to prove Tom’s

Get Access