This is my presentation on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

My essential question for this novel is, "How does increased hostility between economic classes harm society?"

This relates to To Kill a Mockingbird because characters in this book struggle with accepting and understanding people in different classes. Scout, for example, initially acts unsympathetic towards Walter Cunningham and thinks of him as inferior compared to her.

According to the article "Growing Apart: A Political History of American Inequality" by Colin Gordon, economic inequality is worse today than ever before. The income gap between the rich and the poor is currently larger than that of any other developed country. Economic mobility is also weak, as Americans are finding it difficult to move up in social classes. This is causing increasing tension between classes.

Because more people are beginning to realize that this inequality between classes exists, they are becoming frustrated with their inability to change their circumstances. They are also upset because the rich are not doing much to help close the gap; in fact, they generally care more about making money. The lower classes are at a disadvantage because the rich exploit them in order to make more money. They also are not given the same opportunities that those born into a family with higher income receive.

Another way that this inequality negatively affects society is that it compromises the democracy of our country. Gordon writes in his article, "Market power will always shape political outcomes, if only because the rich will always have both the wherewithal and the motive to play a role more influential than any individual votes they might cast."
This means that the upper classes have more influence on politics than the lower classes, which is extremely negative because the rich have more control despite being a smaller percentage of the population, which is another factor that causes the lower classes to feel hostility towards the rich.

These are the two sources that I used: To Kill a Mockingbird and the article "Growing Apart: A Political History of American Inequality."