Examples Of Courage In To Kill A Mockingbird

Courage in To Kill a Mockingbird

Set in a heavily segregated town called Maycomb, a fictitious town in Alabama in the early 1930s, Atticus is chosen by the court to defend Tom Robinson, an African American who has been accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Whilst having a conversation with his son Jem, Atticus Finch defines real courage as doing something when you know you are most likely not going to succeed. Born from this definition and an event that the author, Harper Lee had experienced, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is narrated by a six-year-old Jean Louise (Scout) Finch, and it follows the life of a widowed lawyer named Atticus Finch and his two children in a sustained flashback. Through using aesthetic features, stylistic devices,

Harper Lee successfully demonstrates the theme of courage through the characterisation of Atticus. One such instance is when a lynch mob surrounds him at night, wanting to kill Tom Robinson. Walter says “‘You know what we want, get aside from the door, Mr Finch.’ ‘You can turn around and go home again, Walter,’ Atticus said pleasantly.” (pg. 153) Through this quote, the audience is positioned to admire Atticus for defending Tom physically even though he is outnumbered. Although outwardly Atticus keeps his composure, Scout describes Atticus’s expression as “a flash of plain fear … going out of his eyes.” (pg. 153) Despite fearing what the men would do, Atticus stays and defends Tom, nonetheless. As a result, the audience is shown what courage looks like through Atticus as he knows the lengths the lynch mob is willing to go to get to Tom, but he sees it through anyways. Just before the trial, Scout hears a

One such event was when he tried to rob Judge Taylor’s house, the judge who, in Bob’s opinion “made him look like a fool… [ as he] had looked at him as if he were a three-legged chicken or a square egg,” (pg. 254) in court. Harper Lee portrays Bob Ewell as a person who does not have courage and paints him as something abnormal and dislikeable by using the simile. By integrating the use of tone, the author portrays this statement as humorous and displays Bob as an object to be laughed at and made fun of. Another example of his attitude that does not portray true courage is how Helen, Tom Robinson’s wife, “had to walk nearly a mile out of her way to avoid the Ewells, who, according to Helen, “chunked at her” the first time she tried to use the public road.” (pg.252) This action shows that he has “a permanent running grudge against everybody connected with that case,” (pg.254) and chose to harm others and make life difficult for those who did not agree with him. By quoting Helen, the author subtly shows how Maycomb accepted the African Americans as part of their community and trusted them more than Bob Ewell, who, through his actions, shows that he is cowardly and