Atticus Finch - Unwritten Laws

Unwritten laws Maycomb County, a fictional area in Alabama, is just like any other city in the United States. This county has many people who go on the side of codes not on the side of the law. To Kill a Mockingbird, was written by Harper Lee. In today’s society, people make up codes just to make life easier for them and not to get into fights with anyone. In this book, the Ewells kid does not go to school more than one day and Atticus tries to overcome one of the nation wide codes. The judge decides to go with the code and not the law of Mr. Tom Robinsons case. Burris Ewell, a poor boy in the Ewell family, has his own code. He only has to go to school for only the first day of the year. The law says every kid has to go to school. Since Burris is an Ewell, no one turns him into the authority. “They come first day every year and then leave (Lee 36).” This was said by one of the elderly kids of Scouts and the Burris’ first grade class. The Truant officer tried to make the older Ewell kids to go to school, but she just quit. Everyone in the county knows it is illegal, but no one does anything about it. If anyone went to the authorities, it would make their own lives a lot more difficult because you would have all of the lower class mad at them. Atticus Finch, a white male in Maycomb County, goes against the universal code, whites are better than whites. Mr. Finch was a lawyer who decided to take Tom Robinsons accused rape case out of pride. “If I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again (Lee 100).” Atticus was answer a question from scout when he said this. Atticus is saying that if he did not take the case of Tom Robinson, it would not morally right. He went against the nation wide code and decided to go with the law. He figured out that in court, he would have a fair chance to win this case. Since this happened during the 1950’s, a time of