Differences - to Kill a Mockingbird + a Time to Kill
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- Category: English: Authors
- Date Submitted: 02/21/2014 03:34 PM
- Pages: 4
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Imagine being teased, harassed, segregated, taken away from your family, abused and hated just because you were different. We’ve seen this happen all throughout history time and time again in many shapes and forms. There was the Jewish Holocaust, the Stolen Generations of Indigenous Australians, slavery all over the world, lynching in the southern United States etc.
Now, as defined in the Oxford Dictionary, difference is “A point or way in which people or things are not the same.”. We are all different in some way, it’s what makes us individuals, but a lack of knowledge and understanding has shown us that individuality can be viewed as straying from ‘the norm’ and is commonly seen to be negative. It’s in our nature. Our ancestors tried to stay away from things that were not known to them so that there was no chance of danger. It’s an instinct of survival.
Today I will be speaking to you all about racism and courage in Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and the 1996 film ‘A Time to Kill’.
You all know the story of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, but do you know what ‘A Time to Kill’ is about? A young African-American girl is brutally raped and beaten whilst walking home alone by two redneck racists. They are caught and eventually go to trial, but the young girl’s father, Carl Lee Hailey, is waiting for them and ruthlessly shoots them down and kills them. He is charged with double homicide. He hires a young, aspiring white lawyer, Jake Tyler Brigance, to defend him and as the case progresses the lawyer gets more attached. The case gets uglier and people involved start getting threatened and harassed by the KKK. Through all of these hard times, he doesn’t quit the case, and does his best to defend his client. It’s an amazing film; I highly recommend it ☺
RACISM is probably the most obvious theme in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. One quote in particular said by Mr Horace Gilmer in response to Tom Robinson saying he felt sorry for Ms Mayella Ewell; “You felt sorry for...
Now, as defined in the Oxford Dictionary, difference is “A point or way in which people or things are not the same.”. We are all different in some way, it’s what makes us individuals, but a lack of knowledge and understanding has shown us that individuality can be viewed as straying from ‘the norm’ and is commonly seen to be negative. It’s in our nature. Our ancestors tried to stay away from things that were not known to them so that there was no chance of danger. It’s an instinct of survival.
Today I will be speaking to you all about racism and courage in Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and the 1996 film ‘A Time to Kill’.
You all know the story of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, but do you know what ‘A Time to Kill’ is about? A young African-American girl is brutally raped and beaten whilst walking home alone by two redneck racists. They are caught and eventually go to trial, but the young girl’s father, Carl Lee Hailey, is waiting for them and ruthlessly shoots them down and kills them. He is charged with double homicide. He hires a young, aspiring white lawyer, Jake Tyler Brigance, to defend him and as the case progresses the lawyer gets more attached. The case gets uglier and people involved start getting threatened and harassed by the KKK. Through all of these hard times, he doesn’t quit the case, and does his best to defend his client. It’s an amazing film; I highly recommend it ☺
RACISM is probably the most obvious theme in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. One quote in particular said by Mr Horace Gilmer in response to Tom Robinson saying he felt sorry for Ms Mayella Ewell; “You felt sorry for...