Mercy In To Kill A Mockingbird

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When you think of mercy what do you see? Really think about this. Do you think of a situation of maybe helping a homeless person, or putting a sick dog down and out of its misery? What does it really mean? Mercy, by definition, is compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it’s within one’s power to punish or harm. Throughout this semester of English we have studied four units that have some sort of this theme. There will be examples of these instances from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, To Kill a Mockingbird, Defiance, and The Merchant of Venice. Mercy is shown in all kinds of ways. Each story and topic has a form of it. In the first book we read, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior is a boy …show more content…
In this book, the main idea was about a girl named Scout who is remembering a trial that was going on in this time of her life. She was remembering the trial her father was the defending lawyer in. Her father Atticus was assigned to defend a black man named Tom Robinson. Tom was accused of raping a girl named Mayella Ewell. Right in this description I just stated is an underlying example of mercy. Atticus showed mercy by accepting this case even though he knew it wouldn’t work out. He still chose to give this man a fair trial and do it damn well. When all others besides the black population in Maycomb, Alabama wanted to give up on him and send him right to jail. He would most likely face the death penalty. Atticus Finch had shown a great deal of mercy to this man and his family by giving him a strong fight for …show more content…
In case you didn’t know the Holocaust was a time at the end of WWll that was the mass murder and genocide of the Jewish and minority population. In this unit we watched Defiance and Schindler’s List. Then we got to pick and read our own book that has to do with the Holocaust. There were many cases of mercy along with merciless actions. In the movie Schindler’s List, the whole movie was about mercy. The main character Oskar Schindler was a german man who wanted to start his own pottery and ceramic business. But along with his goal of opening a business, the Holocaust was going on. He started to want to employ the prisoners to work at his factory. He set up his headquarters outside of a concentration camp. Being so close he made acquaintances with on of the general's head of the camp. Through him Oskar was able to buy and employ prisoners. He felt respect and had no judgement toward the Jewish population. He after a while wanted to help and save as many lives as possible through his factory. He showed mercy to these people by giving even the weakest a chance to work. He gave them more food than another place could ever offer to them. He showed them mercy when not one other person would even walk by without spitting on them. Oskar Schindler saved the lives of over 1,000 Jewish and P.O.W’s. At the end of the war he felt so emotional. He thought he could have saved more. All he could do was feel sorry, because he believed he could have