Why Does Lee Show Courage In To Kill A Mockingbird

“How does Lee demonstrate the theme of courage in To kill a mockingbird?”

Harper Lee makes the theme of courage clear and strong in the book “To kill a mockingbird”. Throughout the story there are many demonstrations of courage. Some of these are firstly masked to later be uncovered and at first they may not seem obvious. Some moments of the courage portrayed aren’t physical courage but rather mental and psychological. The story is narrated to us by Scout who is growing up in a small town known as “Maycomb” which is situated in the Southern part of The United States. At the time the novel takes place, racism and segregation was very common in the south and Harper Lee makes this very clear as Maycomb is a stereotypical early twentieth century,
As Jem and Scout grow up in the Maycomb community, they begin to learn and understand people’s views in the community and how they contradict their father Atticus’s views. The largest part of the courage is presented in Atticus as he is fighting a lost battle. Characters that appear later also present courage such as Boo Radley and Mrs. Dubose. Jem demonstrated acts of courage in many ways throughout the novel. A good example would be when Dill made a bet with Jem for him to touch the Radley house. Jem showed courage here as he took on the bet although he was frightened but decided to go along with it to show that he was courageous. Later in chapter 6, Jem (accompanied by Dill) got close enough to the Radley house to actually look inside the window. This shows courage as Jem and Dill know that theres a chance of getting caught. (Which they did). Later in the same chapter Jem Returned to the Radley Place to get back his pants which is yet another act of courage. This was fuelled by the possible disappointment of Atticus once Jem would have had to explain to him what happened. To not disappoint and face up to Atticus, Jem had no choice but to return to the Radley house being fully aware of the dangers once again. Five