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Atticus's Decisions

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In To Kill A Mocking Bird, Harper lee shows that it is better to make decisions based on your own conscience than society's expectation. Three characters that made their decision based on their own conscience are Atticus, Boo Radley, Jem. Even though society was against them, they stuck to what they thought is right and made their own decisions. Atticus got rejected by society for helping a helpless colored man, he made a decision which was very unusual because most of the people in Maycomb were racist and picked on black people. Atticus makes decisions based on his own conscience by taking on the Tom Robinson case, the society were against him and even said “do you defend n****** Atticus?”(Lee 75) everyone was surprised by the decision atticus made, and most people were against him and started to hate him and make fun of him. His children were getting hate from other kids at school too. People would pick on them, bully them, say mean things, and even call their dad a “n***** lover”(Lee 83). Atticus knew that he would get a lot of hate from the society, but he didn't let that stop him from what he thought was right. Every white person in the society would not help black people, they would look at them as if they were …show more content…

He killed Bob Ewell to defend the kids. If he would have followed society’s expectation he wouldn't have killed Bob, and the children would be dead. Murder in Maycomb was unusual, the people couldn't even believe that Boo might have killed Bob, “Mr. Finch, do you think jem killed Bob Ewell?”(Lee 272). Boo’s courageous act had saved the kids and eliminated the bad people from Maycomb. Since Boo saved Atticus’ kids, Atticus decides to blame jem, so that Boo doesn't get a lot of attention which will kill him. “She said Jem got up and yanked him off her- he probably got hold of Ewell’s knife somehow in the dark…”(Lee 272). Atticus blames the situation on Jem, which is fine with them, if it means to not get attention on

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