The Ogress and the Orphans

The characters judge others throughout The Ogress and the Orphans, leading to misunderstandings and division. In Chapter 1, the stone tells the reader that “it is a terrible practice to prejudge anyone” because judging someone before you get to know them only gives assumptions, not truths (3). Through the judgments the townspeople make about the Ogress and one another, as well as how the crows judge anything new, The Ogress and the Orphans shows how judgments harm rather than inform.

From the moment the Ogress moves to the edge of Stone-in-the-Glen, the Mayor badmouths her to the people, and the people take the Mayor’s words as fact, using them to form judgments about the Ogress based on half-truths and biased stories. Fairy tales have given ogres a bad reputation as creatures that destroy towns and eat people. In the early chapters, the stone debunks these tales, explaining that ogres are gentle creatures who live a long time and are kind to those they meet. Since the people do not know of the stone, they only have the Mayor’s perspective, and since they have complete trust in the Mayor because they believe he has their best interests in mind, they don’t question him.