Chris Essay 18

March 10, 2010

Mr. Salsich

English

FINAL DRAFT FOR GRADING

Forgiveness:

An Essay on To Kill a Mockingbird and My Life

(TS) Bryant H. McGill once said, “There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” (CM) You must forgive someone to truly love them, but if you do not love them at all in the first place, then why would you want to forgive them? (CM) If everyone in this world judged people by their mistakes, almost everyone would be enemies. (CM) Everyone makes mistakes, and true love is shown by the ability to forgive people of. (CS) Forgiveness is used every day, as evident in To Kill a Mockingbird, and my own life.

(TS) Forgiveness is hard to come by, and Mayella Ewell deserves it, but Mr. Ewell does not. (SD) To me, forgiveness means putting yourself in someone’s place to understand why they did something, and this is what the people of Maycomb had to do for Mayella and Bob Ewell. (CM) If you put yourself in Mayells’s place you see that she lied to the courtroom for the fear of being beaten by her father. (CM) On the other hand, if you put yourself in Mr. Ewell’s place you see that what he did was unjustified. He beat her for no reason, and forced her to lie to the court. These actions are appalling and unforgivable. (SD) Although Mayella Ewell lied to a courtroom, if she did not her father most likely would have beaten her. (CM) Her father proved that he would in fact beat her, and this image of terror was instilled in her mind throughout the trial. (CM) If I was in the same position I would have probably told the truth, but Mayella was under immense pressure to lie. You could tell she was being forced to lie by her displays of emotion. (SD) Mr. Ewell can never be forgiven for his actions. (CM) What he did was cruel, what he did was unjustified, what he did can never be forgiven. (tricolon) (CM) Mr. Ewell harmed the person he gave life, and to me, this is one of the worst crimes. (CS) You need to understand someone to forgive them, but if you cannot understand why someone did something, than there might not be a reason to forgive them.

(TS) It is a fact that everybody makes mistakes, but not everyone can be forgiven for these mistakes. (SD) If you make a simple mistake like receiving a bad grade, you should be forgiven. (CM) Being forgiven can actually help you improve. (CM) If you are forgiven for your mistake, you have a fresh start rather than having the bad grade “hanging” above your head. (SD) If you make a “medium” level mistake such as harming someone slightly (recoverable injuries), you can be forgiven. (CM) This forgiveness may take longer and would require harder work. (CM) If you help them heal, and sufficiently apologize, you may be forgiven. (SD) However, if you hurt someone in a way in which you cause death or leave permanent emotional or physical scarring, you should not be forgiven. (CM) This action is not something you can simply “make better;” this action is not something you can fix; this action is not forgivable. (tricolon) (CM) Although you cannot be forgiven for your actions, I also believe you should not be punished. (CS) Forgiveness is not something you simply receive; it is something you earn.

(TS) Forgiveness is hard to achieve, but once you are forgiven, you know you are truly loved. (CM) Mayella knew that the people of Maycomb loved her. (CM) They forgave her for lying to the court because they knew she was forced to do it. (CM) If I make a mistake, but am forgiven, I know that the person who forgave me loves me, even if they are still mad. (CS) When someone does something wrong, it creates so much emotion, that sometimes, forgiveness is easier said than done.

Self-Assessment:

This essay was very difficult for me to write about because I have different opinions about forgiveness. For instance, in my first body paragraph’s CS I said that if you cannot understand why someone did something you cannot forgive them. As I look back at this I realize that just because you don’t understand why someone did something, doesn’t necessarily mean what they did was wrong an unforgivable. Everyone looks at things differently, and I now realize this is a mistake I made in my essay. I believe that I improved immensely from my first to second draft. I overlooked many mistakes in my first draft that I fixed for my second draft. With these errors fixed, my paragraph flows a lot better. I still feel I could have added a few more thesaurus words to make my paragraph better. Overall, I believe this was a fairly good essay and I would give myself a B+.