Teo Reid
English 10-32
Final Essay - Essay #4
The condemned court
Fated to fail, but adamant to attempt. Atticus takes the position of court defendant for the case of Tom Robinson. Tom, a 25 year old black man, was accused of assaulting and raping the 19 year old Mayella Ewell. In the prejudiced town of Maycomb, the court ruling would inevitably rule in favor of Mayella, but he accepted the case nevertheless. Atticus took the case because he thinks that Tom deserves a fair trial, he wants to confront the prejudice of Maycomb, and because of his morals. Atticus wants to give Tom the fairest trial he can have. “There’s been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn’t do much about defending this man” (Chapter 9, Page 100). What this implies is that Atticus is aware of the prejudice that is bombarding Tom, even before he enters the courtroom. Knowing that the trial’s outcome is nearly inevitable, Atticus takes the position to give Tom a chance and to ensure that he has the greatest chance of an innocent verdict. Without a doubt, he knows that all people, including the jury, have a bias in the case, but that his efforts in the case may tilt the scales of the court back to equality, giving Tom a just trial.
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“Simply because we were licked for a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win” (Chapter 9, page 101). With this quote, Atticus is attempting to elicit the idea that white people have a distinct social advantage over black people and that the court is representative of that. By Atticus taking this case it demonstrates his goal of proving the prejudice to be wrong and ending the trial in favor of Tom. Regardless of the outcome, the point and the perspective will be shown to the people of