1. Both works focus on the destruction of the innocent. In
Lee's novel, Tom Robinson is a symbolic mockingbird--a person who harms no one and seeks
only to help. Yet, despite his good intentions in helping the lonely, abused Mayella
Ewell, Tom is wrongly accused and later killed. Similarly, in Leunig's cartoon, an
innocent mother trying to protect her innocent children, is about to be destroyed by
"the mother of all bombs" simply because she is in the wrong place at the wrong
time.
2. The injustice portrayed in both works is profound
and disturbing. In the novel, because Atticus takes on Tom's case, the injustices in
Maycomb are revealed, and Atticus believes that a change in the justice system will
eventually take place. However, even if good comes of Tom Robinson's case, a family is
still left fatherless and husbandless. One must ask, why must an innocent man give his
life in order for others to see their prejudice? In the cartoon, while the bomb might be
aimed at an area where terrorists are known to hide, that fact does not justify the
mother and her children's deaths. Like Tom, she has no other place to go, and she has no
idea that her simple existence is in danger.
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