Accepting Differences

A detailed Summary of 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

Another tension and complexity that arises between Scout and Jem is the difference in gender. In the beginning of the novel, Jem treats Scout as his equal and doesn't truly identify Scout as being a girl. However, there is, in the world that Jem and Scout inhabit, a difference between boys and girls. Jem gets furious at Scout sometimes for acting like a girl. "I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it's mortifyn,"(42). Scout has managed in Jem's eyes to avoid acting like he assumes girls act when they are being girls. At one point Jem responds to Scout's protest about a night visit to the Radley place telling her: "Scout. I'm tellin' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home - I declare to the lord you're getting more like a girl everyday!"(56). Additionally, Jem and their friend Dill develop a friendship from which Scout is excluded because she is a girl. This causes tension and complexity, as Scout does not truly view herself as being a "girl." Scout instead strives harder to be the complete opposite, and becomes confused with society's demanding pressure for her to be a proper girl. 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.

The final difference that proves to be significant in the story is that of maturity. Similar to the character of Scout Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, Elisa Allen begins to understand the differences between her and Henry and begins to "grow up" by the end of the story. Elisa begins to realize that she needs something more in her life than a neat house and a good garden. Her marriage to Henry is childless and conventional and she has begun to sense that an important part of her is dying and that her future will be predictable and mundane. Elisa is a barren woman who has transferred her maternal impulses to her garden, a garden full of unborn seedlings. Elisa Allen is beginning to sense that not everybody can be satisfied by bread alone. Henry's concentration on his role as provider and decision-maker has blinded him from Elisa's need for someone to understand the essential nature of her yearning. Near the end of the story, Elisa asks her husband if they might go to a prizefight. This request is so completely out of character, it baffles her husband. This is part of an effort to focus her own angry feelings. In contrast, Elisa completely gives up and her whole body collapses into the seat in a display of defeat. She is anticipating a dreadful future in which she continues to cry "weakly like an old woman"(253). At this point Elisa matures; she has stuck herself in a fantasy world that does not exist. Unfortunately in the time this story took place and given the role of women, her fantasy is inconceivable. Elisa realizes this and begins to understand that the differences between her

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Approximate Word count = 1938
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English