This Terms Reading Assignments

Two books teaching the same morals are “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Walk two Moons.” They both teach that you should not judge a person tell you fully know them. A book similar to To Kill A Mockingbird is Walk Two Moons. This is because the theme in Walk Two Moons is “don’t judge a person until you’ve walked two moons in their moccasins.” In both books, this is the reoccurring theme. In Walk Two Moons a girl named Sal judges her neighbor before she even gets to know her. This passage talks about this blind woman named Mrs. Partridge and her nurse Mrs. Margaret Cadaver. (Page 22)

"And speaking of odd, there is something very odd about that Mrs. Cadaver."
"Margaret?" I said.
"She scares me half to death," Phoebe said.
"Why?"
"That’s what I am telling you," she said.
"First there is that name: Cadaver: you know what cadaver means?"
Actually, I did not.
"It means dead body."
"Are you sure?" I said.
"Of course im sure, Sal. You can check the dictionary if you want. Do you know what she does for a living - what her job is?"
"Yes," I was pleased to say. I was pleased to know something. "She is a nurse."
"Exactly," Phoebe said. "Would you want a nurse whose name meant dead body?"

In this story there turns out to be a long explanation about Mrs. Cadaver and why Sal and her father moved to be closer to her. I have had many friends who I though were really weird until I really got to know them. And other friends who I thought were cool or something and wanted them to be my friend. But when I really got to know them I found out they were not the great person I judged them to be but something else. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley are both judged before anyone actually gets to know them too. “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,” these are the words spoken by Atticus Finch when giving advice to his little girl, Jean Louise, “Scout.” This theme, “do not judge a person before you get to know them,” is something most children, during this day and age, are taught when they are very young, and is the reoccurring theme in To Kill A Mocking Bird. The two clear examples of this theme are with Arthur “Boo” Radley and Tom Robinson. When the characters are first met, they are introduced as bad and maybe even evil people. However, when the characters start to develop, it can be noticed that they are actually good people. In To Kill A Mocking Bird, from the time Arthur “Boo” Radley was a small boy until the time he was a grown adult he was a very misunderstood character. When the children of Maycomb, like Jem and Scout, were young, people would tell horror stories about Boo. One of them was when Boo allegedly stabbed his father with scissors, but throughout the book, it was foreshadowed that Boo really was not a bad person. The first example of the foreshadowing was when Jem got his pants stuck on the fence, and Boo sewed them up and folded them for when Jem came back to claim them. Then, when Miss Maudie’s house caught on fire, Scout was standing outside watching, and Boo put a blanket around her shoulders, so she would not get cold. Finally, Boo kept giving Jem and Scout “gifts.” “Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.” The greatest thing Boo Radley did, that definitely made him a good person was he saved Jem’s and Scout’s lives from a crazy Bob Ewell. To both Finch children, Boo was a very scary person at first, but in the end, he was a kind and caring person. “I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it-seems that only children weep. Good night,” declared Atticus about Tom Robinson’s verdict. Tom Robinson was a character that was found guilty of raping white women. In the South there was a division, based on name and race. Tom Robinson was at the very bottom of this division, because he was black. Even with the evidence that pointed to his innocence, he was found guilty. In a way Tom Robinson was found guilty even before he walked into the courtroom because of his race. Many people, including Atticus, knew that verdict would be “guilty” even before the trial started, unless a miracle happened. Tom Robinson was “judged” before anyone knew anything about him. If the jurors would of kept in mind, “do not judge people before you get to know them,” an innocent man probably would not of lost his life. The two books “To kill a Mockingbird” and Walk Two Moons” were written at two completely different times in history, referring to how life was for everyone, but yet the themes are the same. This shows throughout history people have looked at and written about not judging people, making it a very important moral and topic through the years. “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?” These are the words spoken by Jean Loise Finch about turning in Boo Radley for Bob Ewell’s killing. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing busting their heads out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” “It’s a sin to kill a mocking bird,” and “do not judge people before you get you know them” are two themes that are intertwined and actually can make one theme. In both Tom Robinson’s and Boo Radley’s cases it was like shooting a mockingbird, because they never did anything wrong, but they were judged before they walked two moons in their moccasins. So, by judging them, it was like killing them, and in Tom Robinson’s case it did result in his death. All of these stories and examples somehow relate to us from experiences we have had, but they all say the same thing over and over again” Do not judge people before you get to know them.” These words can be worded in many different ways, and put in many different contexts, but it still means the same thing, and the books To Kill A Mockingbird and Walk Two Moons convey this moral very well.