To Kill A Mockingbird Courage

Before I get into telling you about courage in To Kill a Mockingbird, I would like to tell you what courage means. Courage takes many forms. For example, courage can be a person with a gun in their hand or a person that wants to finally do the right thing even though there are several difficult obstacles in the way. Individuals may demonstrate courage in a way that helps other people or in a way that benefits them. It can even take the form of a personal or family goal. A whole country could even have courage. Now you are probably wondering what forms courage takes in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Here are just a few people in the novel that demonstrate courage: Atticus, Mrs. Dubose, and Arthur Radley. They each demonstrate
Atticus displayed courage with his words and by acting invulnerable even over death threats. One way he demonstrated courage was when he made his closing argument on Tom Robinson’s behalf during the trial. “You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women-black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”(273) This speech would require a lot of courage because telling a bunch of racist white men that they are equally as bad as Negroes would be a very frightening experience. Atticus addressed the jury with this speech because it was his honest opinion and knew it had to be done. He wanted to do all he could to get Tom Robinson out of the courtroom a free man. Another example of courage displayed by Atticus was when Bob Ewell spat in his face and threatened to kill him. “... Mr. Bob Ewell stopped Atticus… spat in his face, and told him he’d get him if it took the rest of his life. ‘I wish Bob Ewell wouldn’t chew tobacco…’”(290-291) Atticus demonstrated courage this time by not fighting back with physical strength or words. He did not feel the slightest bit frightened by the threat and instead made
He demonstrates courage by watching out for the kids and by trying to interact with them. Arthur’s most courageous action in the novel was when he killed Bob Ewell and basically saved the lives of Scout and Jem. “Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.”(373) As you can see, Arthur Radley has given the children a lot of things, including saving their lives. This makes Arthur courageous because he is stepping way out of his comfort zone to be friendly with the kids as well as protecting them. Arthur is very reclusive and has not had a normal amount of exposure to socializing and being around other people with the exception of his brother.
Now it is time to wrap it up. You now know why Atticus, Mrs. Dubose, and Arthur Radley are the most courageous characters in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. As you have seen, courage is a key theme in this novel and takes many forms. There is more to courage than just holding a gun. In this novel, courage can be a spiritual goal, saying something that you know is right, but is frightening to say, or overcoming your fears to help someone else. Courage takes many more forms than this, but these are three key forms of