Accidental similarities in books

It’s a coincidence that two totally different books with a vast amount of different views have similar issues that show examples of prejudice and segregation, unfairness, and the intense need for power in society. The book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, was made twelve years later after the book Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, but they still have similar issues. In To Kill a Mocking Bird two young kids named Jean Louis Finch and Jem Finch are being exposed to prejudice and segregation for the first time in their lives. They are insulted and ridiculed because their father, Atticus Finch, is defending a colored man in court. In Cry the Beloved Country a grown man named Stephen Kumalo is also exposed to prejudice and segregation when he goes on a journey to Johannesburg, South Africa, to find and support his ill sister, Gertrude Kumalo. The books both display prejudice and segregation towards the black people in society, but exhibit it in different perspectives of a colored man (Negro) and a white man. In To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee shows prejudice in the perspective of young white children and in the view of a grown white man. In Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton shows it in the perspective of an old colored man. Although they are shown in different perspectives, they still have similar issues in which each character is exposed to. Especially that issues regarding prejudice and segregation society.

Harper Lee shows you the brokenness in society because of prejudice and segregation towards the black, but Alan Paton also shows that even the black people exhibiting prejudice towards the white. “Why you bringing white chillun to a nigger church” (Lee 119). Most people would think only the whites separate the bla...

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...brokenness in society. They show how people have ruined black reputation and the unfairness they give to the blacks. “Typical for a nigger to cut and run. Typical of a nigga’s mentality to have no plan, no thought for the future” (Lee 265). Society has tainted the innocence of the black people. Both books give you an idea of what apartheid is and how it hurts people. In each community there is a full effec and the lives of people around them. Maybe sooner or later society will remove the concept of prejudice and segregation. Everything will finally be fair and no one will be cheated. The greed for power will dissipate and love will eventually take over. But both books show that if you don’t try to fix the brokenness in society then the issue’s will last forever. They show it’s possible to fix society, but you have to remove the greed and discrimination society has.