Doing The Right Thing 'By Langston Hughes Thank You, Ma' Am

Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.” Tony Blair. Have you ever had a difficult decision to make and then eventually decide to do the best thing for you? I feel that we happened all that to us. In the texts Thank You, Ma’am, by Langston Hughes, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and the commentary Doing The Right Thing by Rick Reilly, All the characters had role models, options and inspired others. All three authors wrote about how the characters went through difficult decisions. In the commentary Doing The Right Thing, the short story Thank You, Ma’am and the poem The Road Not Taken, the characters found their courage from role models, their options and by inspiring others to do the right …show more content…
In the text Doing The Right Thing, the poem The Road Not Taken and the short story Thank You, Ma’am, all the characters had that someone to look up to. In Doing The Right Thing, the football players all have their families to look up to. In the text, it states “These four young men had that someone when it mattered most. For Biondi, It was his mother. For Gallimore, it was his whole family, who now call him ‘Honest Abe’. For James, it was his father ‘He sacrificed a lot for me’ James wrote ‘I want to make him proud of me. I don’t want him to look at me like I was a waste of time.” (Reilly) This shows that in the text that the four football players could have stolen, but instead, they paid for their items because their family might have told them to never steal. In the poem The Road Not Taken the speaker reflects on himself in the past. In the text it states “And be one traveler, long I stood.” (Frost)This shows that the speaker thinks back so the person can further learn from his past mistakes. That is where he finds his courage. The speaker had two paths to choose from and the speaker eventually chose the right path for he/she. Lastly, in the short story Thank You, Ma’am, by Langston Hughes, Roger attempts to steal Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones pocketbook, but he fails. Mrs. Luella then takes Roger to her house where she tells him that she had in fact used to that but doesn’t as she grows older. She tells Roger to be good and sends him off. In the text, it states, ”You thought I was going to say, but I didn’t snatch people’s pocketbooks. Well, I wasn’t going to say that!” (Hughes)The evidence above shows that Roger could look up to Mrs. Luella. It also shows that she knew what it was like and she related to him. In the three texts, Doing The Right Thing, The Road Not Taken and Thank You, Ma’am the main characters either had family or