Prejudice is the preconceived and usually negative attitude or opinion of something or someone, based on irrational feelings, inaccurate knowledge, or stereotypes pre-existing. It is a universal theme that is learned unconsciously (usually influenced by our environment) and often leads to hatred, fear or distrust of a certain race, ethnicity, nationality or social status. Prejudice has always been a problem throughout history; This has notably led to conflicts and unnecessary divisions between people. Through her new characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee explores the idea that while prejudice takes all forms (it's not limited to gender, race, etc.), it often leads to degradation of people or groups to the point where there is no redemption.The novel To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the 1930s in the fictional town of Maycomb, located in the southern United States. In Maycomb, there is a division between the black and white communities because it is a time of racial discrimination. Their lives are governed by rules aimed at maintaining their uneasy coexistence; white people live in town, black people in the back; there are also separate facilities, jobs and buildings. Each group is not completely understood, in the novel the blacks of Maycomb are identified as a single unit, it is assumed that they all act, behave and live the same way. When someone commits a crime, then everyone in that group is a criminal, when someone lies, they are just lairs. There is no possibility of arguing this, of differentiating and understanding each individual and this is what leads to often unjust convictions, there is also resentment felt towards whites by black citizens. In the novel, Tom Robinson is a black man accused of a violent ...... middle of paper ...... and on Radley's porch reenacting the events of the year. She accepts and finally understands Boo Radley; that not all people are the same and that every action usually has a reason. Dolphus Raymond describes prejudice as “the simple hell that people give to others” (p. 201) because they are different. This is a timeless problem that will continue and will never end until there is communication, understanding and more intolerance and stereotyping. To eliminate prejudice, we must learn to “slip into another [man's] skin and walk in it” (p. 30). We must learn to recognize and accept each other's differences; looking under the skin, beyond wealth, religion or gender and into people's hearts to realize that “[they] are people too” (p. 201). Only then will we fully understand, but in the meantime, the universal issue of bias remains..