To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind are two vastly different forms of literature, focusing on different topics, characters, and morals. Yet there is a similar theme within these stories that they share. Through various characters and traits, Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee and Harper Lee each demonstrate the necessity, as well as, the importance of change and growth through their characters.
Scout, only a child throughout the To Kill a Mockingbird, doesn’t change but grows into her character. At the beginning of the novel, she behaves as any child would. She’s impulsive, selfish and quick to fight. Equipped with an odd set of morals for her age, Scout always does what she thinks is right. It’s as she grows that she starts to do what she …show more content…
Hornbeck. Hornbeck enters the play as a cynical journalist and leaves as one. Though the harsh-spoken evolutionist, he proves to be just as intolerant as the religious Hillsboro. He carries a pretentious air around himself and “sneers politely at everything” (137). Hornbeck does not change throughout the play and is characterized as a static character. He is shallow and rude towards the people of Hillsboro, openly mocking their beliefs and ignorance, all while making snide comments. Even at the death of Matthew Harrison Brady, Hornbeck makes heartless remarks, openly calling him a “Barnum-bunkum Bible-beating bastard!” (198). Hornbeck quickly gets irritated at Drummond when he shows sadness over Brady’s death and calls Brady a great man. In Hornbeck’s last scene he accuses Drummond of being “more religious than [Brady] was” (199). He leaves rather angrily, disappointed that Drummond was not as anti-religious as he thought he was. Hornbeck was unchanging during the entirety of the play, and leaves his final scene friendless and alone, with nothing but his typewriter to go back to.
In everyone’s life, there is an underlying need to change and grow, and the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind portray this. Within these stories, there is positivity associated with change, whether it’s to become aware, or self-empowerment, or to empathize. The more one changes, the more one learns; and the inability to do so results in an ignorance of its own. Both the novel and play may be two vastly different forms of literature, but it is literature that one can learn from. It is through change that one can learn to take another approach, and see the path to a new stage in
Scout, only a child throughout the To Kill a Mockingbird, doesn’t change but grows into her character. At the beginning of the novel, she behaves as any child would. She’s impulsive, selfish and quick to fight. Equipped with an odd set of morals for her age, Scout always does what she thinks is right. It’s as she grows that she starts to do what she …show more content…
Hornbeck. Hornbeck enters the play as a cynical journalist and leaves as one. Though the harsh-spoken evolutionist, he proves to be just as intolerant as the religious Hillsboro. He carries a pretentious air around himself and “sneers politely at everything” (137). Hornbeck does not change throughout the play and is characterized as a static character. He is shallow and rude towards the people of Hillsboro, openly mocking their beliefs and ignorance, all while making snide comments. Even at the death of Matthew Harrison Brady, Hornbeck makes heartless remarks, openly calling him a “Barnum-bunkum Bible-beating bastard!” (198). Hornbeck quickly gets irritated at Drummond when he shows sadness over Brady’s death and calls Brady a great man. In Hornbeck’s last scene he accuses Drummond of being “more religious than [Brady] was” (199). He leaves rather angrily, disappointed that Drummond was not as anti-religious as he thought he was. Hornbeck was unchanging during the entirety of the play, and leaves his final scene friendless and alone, with nothing but his typewriter to go back to.
In everyone’s life, there is an underlying need to change and grow, and the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind portray this. Within these stories, there is positivity associated with change, whether it’s to become aware, or self-empowerment, or to empathize. The more one changes, the more one learns; and the inability to do so results in an ignorance of its own. Both the novel and play may be two vastly different forms of literature, but it is literature that one can learn from. It is through change that one can learn to take another approach, and see the path to a new stage in