The famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird represented such literary excellence that it will always mark an important mark in the history of American literature. In To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel set in the 1930s about a child heroine, discrimination and prejudice both play key roles. Today one could not imagine what life would have been like if they had lived in these times. Scout Finch, a girl who, in this novel, begins to understand the reality of the problems in her small Southern town, has faced discrimination in many cases. Three forms of discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird were discrimination against gender, race, and the unknown. The first example of discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird is by gender or sexism. There were only two children in Atticus Finch's family: Jeremy "Jem" Atticus Finch and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. Since there were no other children in their neighborhood, the two children always played together. When the two met Charles "Dill" Baker Harris one summer, they were fast friends. For Scout, being “one of the guys” has never been a problem. However, Jem and Dill began to think differently. When Jem gets angry at Scout over an argument about "Hot Steams", he decides to push her, while inside the tire, down the driveway and into the Radley's front gate. Worried, Jem yells at her to run back to them; in his daze he forgot the gum. Jem ran to get it; when he returned he was frowning: “Nothing to say. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it's mortifying” (Lee 50). He used her being a girl as an insult, even though he was scared too. However, the real conflict began when Dill and Jem decided to try to make the infamous Boo...... middle of paper......ion and insult, something they never expected. (Felty 300) This demonstrates the extent of the severity of racial discrimination prevalent throughout the South in these times. In conclusion, gender discrimination, the unknown, and race were all present in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The reasons for prejudice and discrimination were all the same. These were the “ways” of Southern communities, and the people of Maycomb knew no other way to live. They acted out of habit because this habit was the way they were raised by their parents and their parents by their grandparents, and so on. However, starting with the trial, things would slowly begin to change. Scout would be part of this change as she grew up and her innocence was left behind. This novel will always represent the history of South America and how our society has changed.