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 she has a vocabulary equal to that of many adults. Scout spends most of her time with her older brother Jem playing outside, and has gained a high level of respect for him. Scout looks to Jem for support and wisdom, although he is often wrong in his advice. 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. 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). Of course, Jem is wrong about this. The Dewy Decimal System, devised by Melvel Dewy, is a way of shelving books in libraries; it has nothing to do wit...