Comparing The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck and To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

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“And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is a failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath” (Steinbeck 349). John Steinbeck, the author of The Grapes of Wrath, portrays the migrant’s resentment of the California land owners and their way of life and illustrates that the vagrants from Oklahoma are yearning for labor, provisions, and human decency. Similarly in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee elucidates the concept that people should be treated with inclusive human dignity and be affected by good aspects rather than deleterious behavior. In addition to both novels, “Suffering with Them”, “Evil’s Fate”, and “To Hope” share the same concurrent theme. To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath and “Suffering with Them”, “Evil’s Fate”, and “To Hope” illustrate a synonymous, thematic message that evil’s inhumanity, during corrupt times, induces a perception of hopefulness for good to conquer immorality.

Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, communicates a central idea that society has good and bad qualities by using an epigraphic symbol and dynamic characterization of the novel’s protagonist, Scout. The theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is that individuals affect society in both good and bad aspects. Lee demonstrates this idea by utilizing a mockingbird as the primary symbol of the novel and characterizing Scout to reveal and understand that both good and bad exist in the world. Scout learns that all a mockingbird does is good, it sings, but never does anything that people hate (Lee 90). In the novel, mockingbirds ...

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...rs for their indecency and capability of exploiting them for provocation: “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage” (Steinbeck 349).

Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, 1960. Print.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Books, 1967. Print.

Foss, Raymond. Suffering With Them. Famous Poets and Poems.com. N.p, 29 August 2011.

Web. 9 August 2011. .

Ferris, Gary. Evil’s Fate. Famous Poets and Poems.com. N.p, 24 October 1990. Web. 9 August

2011. .

Keats, John. To Hope. Famous Poets and Poems.com. N.p, n.d. Web. 9 August 2011.

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