Rabbit Proof Fence Vs I Have a Dream Vs to Kill a Mockingbird

Speech

“Empathy and justice are ideals that can be made possible when individuals and communities learn to walk in the shoes of others.”

CHOOSE THE TEXT THAT YOU THINK MOST EFFECTIVELY EXPLORES AND DEVELOPS THIS IDEA. JUSTIFY (WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN THIS TEXT?) YOUR CHOICE THROUGH A COMPARATIVE DISCUSSION OF THE THREE TEXTS. INCLUDE QUOTES, IDEAS (THEMES) AND TECHNIQUES FROM THE TEXTS.

Intro + conclusion = 1min

MLK/RPF = 1min

MLK/TKAM = 1min

Why MLK is better = 1min

Intro (30secs)

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” Martin Luther King Jr.

Of the three texts, Rabbit Proof Fence, To Kill a Mockingbird and “I have a dream” the text that explores the ideals of empathy and justice in communities and individuals the most is “I have a dream” delivered by Martin Luther King.

Rabbit Proof Fence, directed by Phillip Noyce in 2002 is a motion picture set in Australia in the early 1960’s. The film follows 3 Indigenous stolen generation children named Molly, Gracie and Daisy as they escape a mission center and return home to their native home of Jigalong.

“I have a dream” is a speech delivered by American Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963. A time of great social change as activists protested for the abolishment of the Jim Crow Laws and equal voting rights in America.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel written by Harper Lee. Published in the 1960s during the height of the American civil rights movement (and loosely based on the Scottsboro Boys case of 1931) is set in the fictional town of Maycomb during the great depression.

The ideals of empathy and justice can only be realized when individuals and communities walk in someone else’s shoes, despite difference. In comparison to Noyce’s RPF and Lee’s TKAM, King’s “I have a dream” speech explores the ideals of empathy and justice and because of this the speech effectively explores these ideals. In King’s speech, empathy and justice are thoroughly explored through the use of various techniques including the repetition and anaphora used in “100 years later”. The repetition emphasizes the historical allusion of Abraham Lincoln and the lack of progress since Lincoln abolished slavery in 1863. The very words “100 years later” causes individuals and communities alike to feel empathy and long for justice because a century is a very long time and for that many years to have past and zero progress made is disappointing to say the least. The use of personification in “the whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright days of justice emerge” causes us to feel empathy and justice because King compares his Civil Rights movement to a force of nature that can not be stopped until the damage is done and African Americans are equal on all grounds in society.

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