Silenced Voices in To Kill a Mockingbird

Whose voices are missing, silenced, or discounted?

When reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I noticed how women's voices are often silenced in the narrative. Although the novel is written from the perspective of a young woman, it is still obvious of how Scout is often disregarded by her male counterparts. Scout is considered a tomboy because she does not behave as a stereotypical Southern belle.

Although I​​ discussed this in my last post but I feel strongly connected to Calpurnia and feel that her story is still missing in this novel. Although we get glimpses of her life through Scout's perspective, particularly when Calpurnia invites them to her church, but it is still not her story. I also feel that Lee's take on Lula's prejudice is not completely developed. It was almost as she was trying to make Lula seem like an awful person for being mistrustful of the children being invited to church. Although they are children and are not the reason for the discrimination in their society, but I can understand Lula's anger. Lula is most likely used to harsh treatment of blacks by white in her community and is justified for her anger. It seems one-sided since we are seeing this from Scout's perspective and we are not given Lula's complete side of the story.