Comparing Omission In The Palace Thief And The Ox-Bow Incident

In life, people tend to take the easy path and avoid actions which would cause them to stand out against the mass. The Ox-Bow Incident highlights the terrible pitfalls of being a bystander. It underscores the sin of omission in powerful and painful ways. The narrator, Art Croft, has a sophisticated intellect and a strong conscience, but he does not act on it in fear of being rejected from his posse. The Ted Talk “Violence Against Women- It’s a Men’s Issue” confirms the mass similarly are afraid to speak up, and the short story, The Palace Thief, displays how the sin of omission affects not only the sinner but also influences the individual(s) who the omission has been of. Overall, these three texts work together to show that the willingness

The Ted Talk “Violence Against Women- It’s a Men’s Issue”, presented by Jackson Katz, confirms the mass similarly are afraid to speak up. Realizing that in a crowd, people tend to be followers rather than leaders or persuaders, he pondered why this is and while analyzing the topic of violence against women, he understood, “a lot of women who have been trying to speak out about these issues, today and yesterday and for years and years, often get shouted down for their efforts. They get called nasty names like "male-basher" and "man-hater," and the disgusting and offensive "feminazi", right?” The willingness of others to be spectators is high due to the stigma certain people create for others who veer from the majority. These critical terms are not nicknames one would like to receive, and by simply avoiding the topic of domestic abuse, people will not be labeled in this way. However, by being omissive, the problem of domestic abuse has the potential to escalate, possibly even affecting them or someone they care about. If this occurs, the individual too scared to speak their mind about this controversial topic will generate guilt and cause them to feel they have committed a sin simply by keeping their mouth

Within The Palace Thief, Mr. Hundert, a history teacher, hosts a contest on Roman history. The three top students in the class are chosen to participate, one of these including Sedgewick Bell, a troubled student who had been working hard to get his grades up. In the midst of the competition, Hundert was having suspicions about Sedgewick’s delayed answers and downward glare each time he was asked a question. Upon closer inspection, “‘I peered through my glasses at the stage and knew at once that he had attached the “Outline of Ancient Roman History” to the inside of his toga.’” Fully aware this is not allowed and gives Sedgewick an unfair advantage, he “leaned to Mr. Woodbridge next to me and whispered, ‘I believe Sedgewick Bell is cheating.’ ‘Ignore it’, he whispered back.” Mr. Hundert was had a brief moral questioning in this moment, and ultimately decides not to call out Sedgewick because of his father’s high position of authority, which could easily cost him his job if he accused Sedgewick of cheating. When the same contest was running many years after Sedgewick graduated, Hundert again realized, “the flesh-colored device in his ear was not a hearing aid but a transmitter through which he was receiving the answers to my questions.” Not commenting on Sedgewick’s cheating as a child and Mr. Hundert’s submissiveness and willingness to be