What Happens To You Critical Lens

Throughout one’s life a person faces many challenges with integrity. Integrity is measured by one’s ability to understand another’s perspective. By definition integrity is being honest and true by having a good moral compass to guide a person. This divine quality causes one to look beyond themselves and focus through the eyes of another. This teaching is exemplified through the pieces of literature by by revealing the importance of gazing through the eyes of another. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the poem “In Someone’s Shoes” by Ilene Bauer, and the song “Til It Happens To You” by Lady Gaga are about integrity and reveal the basis of integrity it looking beyond one’s own perspective. The characters in these pieces of literature
Atticus is explaining to Scout that “considering things” from another point of view allows a person to get to get a better understanding from a different perspective. Atticus uses the metaphor, “climbing into someone’s skin” and “walking around in it” represents experiencing things as another to see things as they do. This is similar to the author’s beliefs in the poem, “In Someone’s Shoes.” She begins the poem with a strong message; “put yourself in someone's shoes and gaze from that perspective doing that may give you pause or cause to be reflective” (Source C). The author uses “shoes” to represent a person’s life. By putting oneself in someone else's shoes it allows one to see things differently than how one may see things in their own
The well known singer, Lady Gaga, talks about how people do not truly understand until they’re put in the same situation in her song, “‘til it happens to you”. She sings, “til it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels” (Source B). She uses this chorus to send a message that one does not know what other people are going through until it has “happened” to them. They cannot fully sympathize or “feel” what that person because they don’t know the extent of what they are going through. The author, Ilene Bauer, teaches us a similar principle in her poem by stating “Judging others isn’t fair unless we’ve lived their lives” (Source C). We cannot assume we understand a persons situation unless we have been in their shoes. If we “judge” others before thinking of their perspective it is unfair to that person. Along with not judging a person before we see things from their point of view we should not give them fake sympathy and pretend to understand. This is how Lady Gaga feels when she says, “‘Til your world burns and crashes ‘Til you're at the end, the end of your rope ‘Til you're standing in my shoes, I don't wanna hear nothing from you.” (Source B). Lady Gaga uses powerful imagery such as, “‘Til your world burns and crashes” and being at the “end of your rope” to represent hitting rock bottom. She goes on to say, until one is “standing” in her “shoes” she