To Kill a Mockingbird and A Time to Kill: Similarities and Differences

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A Time to Kill and To Kill a Mockingbird both have a number of similarities to be compared and contrasted. Both stories can be compared in their themes about justice and racial prejudice. However, this is where the similarities end. The themes and ideas in both novels are vastly different in shape and scope. In A Time to Kill justice is the main theme and most of the ideas are focused on justice and the gray in between the lines of black and white set by the law, racial prejudice is also touched upon very frequently in the comparisons between Jake Brigance and Carl Lee Hailey and how he wouldn't even have had to face trial if he was a white man. In To Kill a Mockingbird justice is a theme which is not expanded upon or explained in nearly as much detail as it is in A Time to Kill. To Kill a Mockingbird also has a much larger variety in it's themes, ranging from the themes of justice to the exploration of a child's way of perceiving right and wrong as well as the idea of coming of age. These stories are honestly and objectively far more different than they are alike. A Time to Kill is a story based primarily on justice. The story is based around the trial of a black man named Carl Lee Hailey, who is accused of murdering two unarmed white men in the middle of a courthouse. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about many themes including a child's innocent perception of the world, a man's shame and the lengths to which he will go to regain his pride, and at the root of it all is a matter of justice. To Kill a Mockingbird features a trial in which a black man named Tom Robinson is accused of raping and beating a white woman. The main connection between the stories is a matter of racial prejudice. Neither of these trials would have even occ... ... middle of paper ... ...an half of To Kill a Mockingbird's themes and ideas can't even be compared to A Time to Kill because they both deal with such different subject matter. One could compare Scout to Carl Lee's daughter and discuss how both stories deal with a child's innocence, however Scout's innocence is explored and explained whereas Carl Lee's daughter loses her innocence. Another way that a comparison could be drawn is through the mention that both stories include rape and use it to ignite a discussion about morality, however in To Kill a Mockingbird the rape and beating are only used as a framing device that leads to more important events, and in A Time to Kill the rape is discussed as a terrible and cruel crime which turns the two perpetrators of the act into monsters to be slain and acts as the main motivation for Carl Lee's killing spree and the not guilty verdict in his trial.

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