Chasity Hardwell
March 31st 2017
Values Essay
Ms. Bryant / 7th Period
Values in the U.S.
The different types of values we have relate to lots of things like, “To Kill A Mockingbird”. The book is easy to relate to the “Values Americans Live By,” By, Robert Kohls, and I’m going to write about them. The most common values are the ones I’ll be relating to the book and other things.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus is very open with his option. When he tell Jem “Son, I can’t tell what you’re going to be- an engineer, a lawyer, or a portrait painter. You’ve perpetrated a near libel here in the front yard.” He says that because Jem wanted to build a snowman, but didn’t know how. So when he came home from work and saw Jem had made it, he expressed the talent he thinks he have for doing so. He was so proud of him for making the snowman he was open about his many talents.
Atticus is also very practical and efficient, In To Kill A Mockingbird. He’s a very hard worker who never gives up and rises to the top when doing so. He also tries to make good decisions in sticky situations. “For God’s sake, Mr. Finch, look where he is! Miss and you’ll go straight into the Radley house! I can’t shoot that well and you know it!” Instead of getting nervous send doing something dumb because of the deadly dog, he stayed calm and shoot the dog, correctly. He waited until it was the perfect time to shot, and did it without messing up.
Jem and Scout use personal control over the environment to get things out of a knot-hole in the Radley’s lot in a tree. When they walk home from school they see things and take them, even though they don’t know whose it is. “From then on, we consider everything we found in the knot-hole our property.” “I pulled out two small images carved in soap.” They used the tree to get things they thought were cool or liked.
The movie Friday and it’s characters are another good example of personal control over the environment, when Smokey uses the earth to get high. When he smokes weed, he’s using the plants the earth provides, but twisting it around and smokes it. He says “Ain’t nothing wrong with smoking weed, weed is from the earth. God put this here to me , and you! Take advantage man, take advantage.” When he says that, he thinks it’s okay and that there suppose to make blunts from the plants that grow from the ground and get extremely high from it. Therefore, he’s using the environment around is to advantage and doing what he wants with what he gets from it.
In the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, Christopher Garden is very practical and efficient, about getting his son well taking care of sand off the streets. He works very hard to get this job in a very large office, since he started off as an intern, so he can provide for himself and also his son. I’m this movie, every decision he makes not only effect him, but his young son so he has to choose them carefully, so he does try to make the best decisions possible. He ends up in this position because of making not so smart decisions and using all of him and his wife’s money to invest in things that are no longer worth buying. So because of that, his wife leaves him and there child with no money or job. Chris works very hard at the job and ends up getting the job and making everything alright for him and his son.