How Does Atticus Show Courage In To Kill A Mockingbird

The book To Kill A Mockingbird has many aspects and topics to view the characters upon. However, the largest is courage. Courage shapes the personality of characters and causes events in the story. There are many examples of courage in the book To Kill A Mockingbird. However the most prominent ones are those of Atticus, Scout, and Boo Radley. They are large in the shaping of the events in the story, and should be a topic all on their own. They create more intricacy to the many parts of To Kill A Mockingbird. They also create events in the story, if a character remains static throughout the story and does nothing, then there is no story. The acts of courage that Atticus, Scout, and Boo Radley are the biggest out of all the other characters.

Tom Robinson, was an african american during the 1930s in an area with great prejudice against african americans. Tom was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, Bob Ewell’s daughter. This case, normally, would have ended in a day because of prejudice. But, Atticus fought for him in the court of law to keep him out of prison. Tom was falsely accused of rape by Bob and Atticus new it. Atticus, despite being called many things not fit for childrens ears, did what he knew was right. Against all consensus he did what was right and fought the case with all he had. He treated Tom like any other white person of the time, with respect. This was huge during the 1930s, african americans were almost never respected by white men. In fact it was quite the opposite. Atticus brought along another characters act of courage through this court case, and his being against

His peers simply never saw him, this caused them to create an image of him. Boo stayed in his room and never came out, he never played with any other children. His main act of courage was set at the end of the story. Bob Ewell attacked Scout, and her brother Jem, at night when they were coming home from the school house. The fight was unclear in the book because no definitive point of view was shown, due to Scout being unable to see because of her costume. However, the details are revealed at the end of the story. Boo Radley stabbed Bob Ewell with a kitchen knife. Bob was drunk and attacking Scout with a knife of his own. Jem broke his arm somehow in the scuffle, and passed out. Then Heck Tate the local sheriff heard the screams and came to find the children and Bob. Boo’s act of courage was both coming out of his house, and stabbing Bob in the ribs. This is huge, otherwise Scout and Jem probably would've died at the hands of Bob Ewell. This helps define Boo in a better light compared to what the children thought he