Comparison: Shawshank Redemption And To Kill A Mocking Bird

Name Course Instructor Date Comparison Essay: Shawshank Redemption and To Kill a Mocking Bird Life is defined more by the choices people make than the circumstances they find themselves in. These choices are normally guided by what the society around believes in and their responses to various issues. Some choose to live within confined spaces as dictated by society while others opt to go beyond the normal and find freedom in the process. Such pursuits for freedom and justice are explored in the books Shawshank Redemption and To Kill a Mocking Bird. The two novels have explored similar themes of justice, morality and courage with notable differences on the way the themes are explored and the different characters who indicate a lot of diversity on the exploration of the themes in the two novels. The theme of morality and ethics is common in both the Shawshank Redemption and To Kill a Mockingbird but explored differently. In Shawshabnk the authorities tolerate unethical practices but in the Mockingbird the lawyer stands against all the moral decadence and unethical practices in the society. In Shawshank for instance, the book presents a prison environment where nearly everyone is perceived to have committed one sort of unethical act or another. The prison guards are a proof of this fact as they are seen handling the prisoners with a lot of brutality in a bid to be respected. Prisoners are mercilessly tortured and killed by the same people who are charged with the responsibility of protecting them and helping them reform from their wrong ways. The prison director Norton who believed in his absolute power over the lives of the prisoners further promoted this moral decadence. At one instance when the prisoner Andy decides to stop his involvement in Norton`s money-laundering business, Norton uses his power as the director to threaten him. He tells him “Nothing stops…or you will do the hardest time there is. No protection from the guards” (King p.23). Without doubt, the use of other people to do illegal deals is also immoral and unethical on the part of Norton. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, the same theme is discussed. However, in this novel it’s different and opposite of Shawshank. One man, Atticus is seen standing against the immorality that is prevalent in his town. As a lawyer, he finds himself in a position where he has to defend a wrongfully accused black man. Unfortunately, the society is racist with many believing that the man is guilty of raping a young girl just because of his color. This insensitivity towards others speaks of moral decadence in this case and Atticus makes efforts to try to stand against it. He feels the need to stand for justice irrespective of one`s skin color and when asked why he cannot drop the idea of representing the black man he says “if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town” (Lee ch.9, p16-25). This means he valued others and wished to instill the same moral principles in his children in a society that was so prejudiced. The two novels also touch on the theme of injustice but differently. Shawshank mainly focuses on how the authority does not care about justice and uses the lack of it to th...