Similarities Between 'To Kill A Mockingbird And The Kite Runner'

Synthesis Essay Outline

Thesis: In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and Night by Elie Wiesel, the virtuous and pure characters, Tom Robinson, Elie, and Hassan are victims of prejudice based on their race, ethnicity, and religion; these “mockingbirds” are robbed of their innocence due to the evil of prejudice.

I.

a. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Tom Robinson, a well-mannered and kind-hearted colored man, unjustly loses his life because of the strong hold racial prejudice has on his small southern town.

b. Lee depicts Tom as a good, innocent man who goes to church every Sunday and has a wife and kids. However when he is falsely accused of raping a young white woman, he is placed in a life-threatening

Atticus describes the scene of Tom’s death: “They said if he had two good arms he’d have made it, he was moving that fast. Seventeen bullets in him… I guess Tom was tired of white men’s chances and preferred to take his own,” (Lee 268-269).

d. Tom’s loss of innocence is made obvious when he breaks the rules and tries to escape prison. He is still a good man, though, and was sick “of white men’s chances.” He did not want to rot away in jail as an innocent man waiting for Atticus to free him. He had “seventeen bullets in him;” a merciless murder.

e. His death is compared to the killing of a mockingbird. Early in the book, Atticus cautions his children, “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 103).

f. Mockingbirds represent those who do not do anything immoral to deserve harsh punishment. Tom Robinson’s death is a “sin.” He did not rape the young white girl, but who would believe a black man’s word over a white woman’s word? The small southern town engulfed by racial prejudice against blacks has “kill[ed] a mockingbird.”

g. Looking back at his trial, the color of his skin was the most convincing evidence to convict him. With seventeen fatal bullets, the mockingbird is

Before the Nazis, Elie loves his family and is eager to further his studies about the ways of God. However, once he enters the world inside concentration camps his family is quickly separated and he struggles to maintain his devotion to God. The SS officers severely mistreat the Jews and if any step out of line, they are abused and humiliated.

c. When Elie discovers an officer with a young girl in a back room of the warehouse, he is beaten like an animal: “A-7713!’ I stepped forward. ‘A crate!’ he ordered. They brought a crate. ‘Lie down on it! On your belly!’ I obeyed. I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip” (Wiesel 57).

d. Elie’s loss of innocence is displayed when he says, “I no longer felt anything the lashes of the whip.” He admits to not feeling any emotions at all, not even anger or sadness because he knows that it will not relieve him of his distress. The one and all thing he feels is pain. Along with being emotionally broken and physically abused by prejudice, Elie also withstands psychological degradation when he is called “A-7713.” He is immediately branded with these symbols when he first arrives and is made to feel less than human or like he is only a number.

e. The Jewish prisoners are tortured and worked like mules simply because they are Jewish. They have done nothing immoral to receive such treatment and