Courage in To Kill a Mockingbird In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses repetition to show that being courageous means doing something even if you know you might not come out on top. An example of this is given in chapter nine. In this chapter a boy named Cecil Jacobs makes fun of Scout at school because her dad was defending an African American man. Scout asks Atticus if what Cecil Jacobs said was true. Atticus confirms what Cecil says, but tells Scout that it is the right thing to do. Scout asks her father, “‘Atticus are we going to win it?’ ‘No, honey.’ ‘Then why-’ ‘Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,’ Atticus said” (Lee 101). The quote that was selected proves the claim about courage that was presented in the topic sentence because in it, it is basically said that courage is doing something that you are almost certain won’t be successful, or victorious in. This is what Atticus is doing in this quote. Atticus takes on a case that he is almost certain he is going to lose and that will also cause him and his children to be despised and harassed by his neighbors and other people in his community. …show more content…
In chapter 11, Jem Finch is in the living room with Scout Finch when Atticus returns from Mrs. Dubose’s house and brings them news of Mrs. Dubose’s death. Atticus gives Jem a box that the old women had left him. Jem opens the box and finds a flower. Jem becomes angry, but Atticus tries to explain to him that the white flower is Mrs. Dubose’s way of saying that there is no bad blood between them. Atticus goes on to praise Mrs. Dubose and how courageous she was for fighting her drug addiction, saying that “‘I wanted you to see what real courage is,...It’s when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do’” (Lee