Accepting Differences
The novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee and the short story, "Chrysanthemums," by John Steinbeck, deal with male and female differences between characters. The characters of these stories experience tensions and complexities with dominance, gender, and maturity. However, by the end of both stories, the common differences these male and female characters face help them with understanding and tolerance between each other. The novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, tells of the gradual ethical awakening of Scout Finch and her brother, Jem. They become aware of their differences and learn that people and things can often be more or less than what they seem. The narrator of this novel is Scout Finch, and everything that happens is seen through her eyes, leading Scout to discover several differences and tensions with her older brother Jem. The novel begins when Scout is only five-and-a-half years old, but she already has a complex and interesting personality. Scout's mother died when she was two and her father is a scholarly man in his fifties who has no idea of how to play with his children or talk to them on their own level. Scout has taught herself to read at an early age, and sh
Elisa Allen is beginning to sense that not everybody can be satisfied by bread alone. Henry changes the subject and quickly starts talking about his livestock that he sold. Scout now has the impression that Jem feels superior towards her and no longer treats her as a playmate. For example, Jem thinks that entailment is "having your tail in a crack,"(20) when it actually has to do with the way property is inherited. Steinbeck describes the male and female differences that occur between Elisa Allen and her husband Henry Allen, which include dominance, gender, and maturity. This shows throughout the novel as Jem continuously reprimands Scout and tells her what to do. This is part of an effort to focus her own angry feelings. Again, at first you see Jem as Scout's playmate and equal. As the novel ends, Scout realizes the differences between her and Jem and reacts in an understanding and tolerant manner. I've a gift with things, all right"(247). Likewise, Scout becomes angry with Jem for continuously pointing out how she is "girly" and retaliates through out the novel on the issue of gender. John Steinbeck writes about a farmer's wife living in California set back in 1938. Steinbeck smartly narrates this women's frequent shifts between femininity and masculinity over a short period of time. Scout's confusion increases when Jem tells her at recess that Miss Caroline's system of teaching is something called the "Dewey Decimal System" (18). Conversely, this causes tension as well as complexity for Scout, who listens to her brother and reluctantly does as she is told, but despises him for his actions.
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Acceptance Essays
