Critical Lens

"In literature, evil often triumphs, but never conquers."

Someone once said, "In literature, evil often triumphs, but never conquers". This idea is shown in the novels To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Girl That Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow. These two novels are great examples of how evil and horrible things are often present in the stories we read and love the most, but they are never able to vanquish.

In Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, we are introduced to a society that, like ours today, is filled with the evils of racism and prejudice. One example of an evil that triumphed but did not conquer was when the townspeople started to treat Scout and Jem differently because Atticus was defending Tom Robinson, an African American. The story takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during a time when racism was very prominent. Even though this made things difficult for Jem and Scout, they never let the ignorance of other people affect their love for their father. they were raised to not care about what others thought because "the one thing that doesn't go by majority rule is a person's conscience". This shows that Jem, Scout, and Atticus are all very strong characters in the novel who aren't so easily swayed by the views of others. No matter what people thought, they were never convinced or manipulated to change their feelings about the court case, or each other. Another example of an evil that was unable to conquer in the novel was Jem and Scout's view of Boo Radley. At first, Jem and Scout were terrified of him because they were so easily influenced by one of society's evils: gossip. In continuation of the motif of prejudice, most of the townspeople said bad things about Boo Radley because he was seen as someone who was different. Thankfully, after Boo saves Jem and Scouts's lives, they were able to overcome that negative outlook and see the kind and courageous person that Boo Radley actually was. Another evil that was not able to conquer because of this novel was the theme of racism. thanks to Harper Lee and this novel, she was able to open her reader's eyes to an evil that needed to be addressed in society, regardless of time period.

Another novel that supports the idea that evil cannot conquer in literature is Heidi W. Durrow's The Girl That Fell From the Sky. One example of a horrible evil that was not able to conquer was how Rachel survived from jumping off the apartment building with her family. Even though it was horrible and extremely disturbing that Rachel's mother wanted all of her family to die together so they wouldn't have to deal with a society that wouldn't accept their interracial family, Rachel was miraculously able to survive the deadly fall and have a second chance at life. Another example of an evil that was not able to conquer in Rachel's life was the death of her aunt. Rachel really looked up to her aunt, because she felt that she was the only one in her family that accepted her for being both black and white.  Rachel was told at early age "that black people don’t have blue eyes.  I learn that I am black.  I have blue eyes", but her aunt helped her realize that it was beautiful to be both black and white. Even though Rachel was negatively affected by her aunt passing away, as a character she was still able to go on with her life and learn to love herself for who she was.


Harper Lee's novel and Heidi W. Durrow's novels are both similar and different in many ways. One example of how the novels are similar is that they both have a theme based on racism. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is automatically considered to be guilty because he is African American. In The Girl The Fell From the Sky, Rachel grows up feeling different from everyone because she is not accepted by the White community or the African American community because she is bi-racial. Another example of how the books are similar is that in both novels, the people that were facing hard ships because of the color of their skin had someone on their side trying to help better their situation. In Harper Lee's novel, Atticus was defending Tom Robinson in court because he truly believed that he was innocent, regardless of his race. In Durrow's novel, Rachel's aunt was always there for her and taught her to love herself for who she was despite the harsh comments that people made about her.To  These two novels however, are also very different. In Kill a Mockingbird, only the white community was prejudice towards Tom Robinson. In The Girl That Fell From the Sky, both the African American community and the White community were prejudice towards Rachel. 


With these differences and similarities, both novels still able to drive the same point home that evil can never conquer. Both of these novels show main characters that are able to overcome evils that could have ruined their lives. As an audience, we must take what we learn from literature like this and learn to overcome the evils that try and plague our own lives.