Similarities Between A Christmas Memory And To Kill A Mockingbird

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”-Atticus Finch- To Kill a Mockingbird. Nobody knows a person until they step into someone's shoes to fully understand. Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird understands this and put it to work. In Maycomb, Alabama a curious little girl named Scout lives during the depression with her father, Atticus, brother, Jem, and their friend Dill that was based on Truman Capote. The kids want to know who their neighbor Boo Radley is. Meanwhile, Scout's father is a lawyer that is defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. Bob Ewell, the father of the girl that supposedly got raped tried to

go after the kids, but Boo Radley saved the day. Scout fully understands Boo Radley and his life. Boo Radley watches over the kids on the block like they are his own. “When you're grown up, will we still be friends?”- Truman Capote- “A Christmas Memory”. When people grow up, they never want to lose their friends from childhood. That's exactly what the author of “A Christmas Memory” Truman Capote was trying to capture. Capote, who is also called “Buddy” was living in Alabama with his elderly distant cousin. He knew his best friend/cousin tried her very best to give him everything and he was grateful for her. The depression was happening so they didn't have much money back then. The activities they did together were baking fruitcakes, chopping down Christmas Trees, and giving each other kites on Christmas. But, sadly in the end he got shipped off to military school and the cousin died. Buddy still remembers all the memories he had with his best friend before he had to leave home. In analyzing these two stories, the characters, setting, and literary devices have many similarities and differences.

First, the two stories have many similarities and differences between the two main characters.

One similarity that fits both characters is that they both are children. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout says “Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to the people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.” From this quote, she is still learning her manners and to be kind. In “A Christmas Memory”, Buddy says “The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something.” So he is still young and learning the ropes too. Another similarity that they both share is living during the depression. Scout and Buddy don't have much money, but they make the best of it. In “A Christmas Memory” Buddy says “We eat our supper (cold biscuits, bacon, blackberry jam) and discuss tomorrow.” When they are eating cold food and not a good meal, that's when you know that they don't have much money to buy a lot of food. Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird says “Hey, Mr. Cunningham. How's your entailment gettin' along?” Mr. Cunningham was trying to pay back the people that helped him, including Atticus, but he can't pay with money. He pays with resources, food, or work. Mr. Cunningham doesn't want charity and he doesn't get paid a lot of money. Entailment shows that they are in the depression era. A difference between Scout and Buddy is family. In “A Christmas Memory”, Buddy says “We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together-well, as long as I could remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives.”In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout says “With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable." Scout loves her father and all of her family she has. She wouldn't know what she would do without him. Buddy, who doesn't live with his parents counts on his elderly cousin because that is the only person he has to depend on. He doesn't have much family like Scout. Another difference is that To Kill A Mockingbird is

fictional while “A Christmas Memory” is nonfiction. For example, in the short story Buddy says “Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago.” He is telling about a memory with his cousin from twenty years ago. In the novel, Scout says “An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things... Atticus, he was real nice...." His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me.” Boo Radley is a made up character. Now at this point, all the evidence shows that “A Christmas Memory” is nonfictional and To Kill A Mockingbird is fictional. But also, Scout and Buddy both can relate to each other and their own way of life during this era.

Secondly, the two stories have differences and similarities between the setting. One similarity that fits the settings, includes both being friendly towns. In the novel, the setting is described as a friendly town with old ladies baking cakes and sheriffs who say folksy things. In the short story, it's starts in a small town with old ladies and kids baking cakes and giving them to people they know of. For example, in “A Christmas Memory” the cousin says “Friends. Not necessarily neighbor friends indeed, the larger share is intended for persons we've met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People we struck our fancy. Like President Roosevelt. Like the reverend and Mrs. J.C Lucey, and Baptist missionaries in Borneo who lectured last winter.” In To Kill A Mockingbird, Miss Stephanie and Miss Maudie are neighbors that care for Scout and Jem like they were their own. Miss Maudie says to Scout “What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn't be as hard as some men are at their best. There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results." Miss Maudie gives Scout advice, sometimes has her learn lessons, and bakes cakes for her. Another Similarity includes both stories having “creepy mysterious neighbors”. The people say bad things about them. Scout grows up hearing about Boo Radley and how weird of a person he is. Not until the very end of the book does she realize everyone was wrong about him. At the beginning of the book Jem tells Scout about Boo by saying “Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained – if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.” In the end of the book, Scout finds out that he is a nice person and is not what Jem described him as. In the story, Atticus believed that Jem killed Ewell in self-defense, but officer makes him realize that Boo Radley actually stabbed Ewell and saved the kids’ lives. Even though he killed someone, he saved Scout and Jem from getting hurt, and that shows that he isn't a monster after all. In a “Christmas Memory” there is a man named Mr. Haha Jones. Buddy says “Actually we never laid eyes on her husband, though we heard that he's an Indian too. A giant with razor scars across his cheeks. They call him Haha because he's so gloomy, man who never laughs.” When they ask him for whiskey, Mr. Haha starts laughing and smiling. When they handed the money to buy the whiskey, Haha poured the money back into their hands. He just ask to have one of the fruitcakes when they are finished. Buddy learns that Haha is actually a nice person, and he is a very giving person. Scout and Buddy both live in a very nice little town with caring and nice neighbors including Haha and Boo. One difference between the two settings is the short story starts in November and is close to Christmas while the novel starts in summer/fall. Buddy says “Imagine a morning in November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago.” As in TKAM, Scout says “Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it, that summer I was 6 years old.” Another difference between the two settings is different starting points. In To Kill A Mockingbird , Scout introduces us to her surroundings, and says “Early one morning as we were beginning our day’s play in the back yard, Jem and I heard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford’s collard patch. In “A Christmas Memory” Buddy describes where he is and says “Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs laced in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar.” Therefore, the two stories take place in different seasons and have different starting positions.

Finally, the two stories have similarities and differences between literary devices. One similarity between the two is the use of imagery. For example, when Buddy and his cousin look for a Christmas tree, and Buddy exclaims “And, indeed, it is a kind of ocean. Scented acres of holiday trees, prickly leafed holly.” This helps to explain to each reader what Buddy smelled while looking for a Christmas tree. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout describes the Radley House by saying “The Radley place jutted into a sharp curve beyond our house. Walking south, one faced its porch, the sidewalk turned and ran beside the lot. The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the color of the slate grey yard around it. Rain rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard, a 'swept' yard that was never swept where Johnson grass and rabbit tobacco grew in abundance.” This helps the readers understand how the Radley house looked like. Another comparison between the two is similes. In To Kill A Mockingbird Scout says “Her mouth seemed to have a private existence of its own. It worked separate and apart from the rest of her, out and in, like a clam hole at low tide.” Scout was describing Mrs. Dubose. In “A Christmas Memory” Buddy says “She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen.” He is describing his elderly cousin. There were many similarities between the two, but imagery and similes are the most important. A difference between the literary devices is the novel uses idioms and the short story uses personification. One example from To Kill A Mockingbird is “True enough, she had an acid tongue in her head. To have an acid tongue means someone speaks hardly or bitterly. In the short story, it says “A brave handsome brute that survives thirty hatchet strokes before it keels with a creaking rending cry.” A brute is not human so it can't be a man or cry. Another contrast between the literary devices is the novel uses more foreshadowing and the short story uses more symbolism. One way To Kill A Mockingbird uses foreshadowing is when Jem says “I'm goin’ downtown for awhile.”He was changing his pants.”Why? It's almost ten o'clock Jem.” Jem knew something was wrong when Atticus left so he was going downtown to find out what was happening. One way “A Christmas Memory” uses symbolism is at the ending of the story when Buddy says “That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.” The kites symbolism his elderly cousin that died. There were many differences, but idioms, personification, symbolism, and foreshadowing are the most important.

In conclusion, analyzing these two stories, the characters, setting, and literary devices have many similarities and differences. Using characters, setting, and literary devices helps explain the similarities between the two stories and the meaning of them. All in all, the two stories express certain moods and ideas with differences and similarities.