I recently read both A Raisin in the Sun and To Kill a Mockingbird, both considered classics of literature. They share a similar set of themes and characters dealing with similar situations. Ultimately, they have extremely different plots, but deal with the same issues; some that were common in the period in which they were published and others that have relevance in current times. What I want to highlight in this essay is that in both novels there are many characters whose lives reach a turning point during the course of the story. This breaking point is the point at which the characters' lives are irrevocably changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. What I will explore is how these characters deal with the emotional fallout of what the aforementioned shattering point left behind. From A Raisin in the Sun we have Benethea Younger, and from To Kill a Mocking Bird we have Jeremy Finch. , better known as Jem to analyze. In A Raisin in the Sun, Benethea Younger is an independent young African American woman who has great ambitions for the time period in which the novel is set. He wants to become a doctor so he can make a difference in the world by helping people. It can be determined that it follows the search for a hero's identity, trying to discover his roots. However, the point that breaks her spirit is when she discovers that her brother essentially stole the portion of her father's life insurance, intended for her college education, to invest in a liquor store, which, as we later find out , he will not give her anything back. profit because one of his so-called "partners" left town with all the money invested. This shook Benethea to the core, as at this point she no longer cares about helping people, she is no longer o...... middle of paper ...sitives, as they can easily degenerate into the lower strata of society if not they are able to cope with the feelings caused by these events. Although both novels somehow end with a positive optimism, and this demonstrates the mastery of both authors through their extraordinary literary legacy in the form of these two novels. Works Cited Lee, Harper. To kill a thrush. HarperCollins: 1960Hansberry, Lorrain. A raisin in the sun. New York: Random House, 1959. Risa L. Goluboff, The Lost Promise of Civil Rights, Harvard University Press, MA: Cambridge, 2007, p. 249–251Ted Honderich, Punishment: The supposed justifications (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1969), chapter 1John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (revised edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 266.Carson, Clayborne (1981). Struggling: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Harvard University Press