The Courage of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

“Every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess.” To Kill A Mockingbird, an award winning book by Harper Lee is about Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Maycomb, Alabama attempting to defend Tom Robinson. Tom, who was accused of rape by a white lady named Mayella Ewell in the 20th century is having great difficulty in winning the case. Atticus Finch is showing great courage and self-confidence when he decides to aid Tom Robinson with his case.

Atticus is defending Tom because he values equality and justice. He believes that absolutely everyone is equal and consequently just simply because Tom Robinson is black, does not mean that he ought to not defend him. Before the trial, Atticus states, “Simply because we had been licked a hundred years before we started is no explanation not to try to win.” Atticus is pointing out that basically simply because ingrained racism will probably drop them the trial, does not imply they can not do the proper issue to fight for justice anyway.

Yet another cause why Atticus defended Tom since he wanted Jem, his son to look up to him and hold his respect for his dad. Atticus states, “Before Jem appears at any person else, he looks at me. I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him… If I connived at anything like this, frankly, I couldn’t meet his eye, and the day I cannot do that I’ll have lost him. If Atticus didn’t defend Tom, Jem would no longer have respect for his father and he wouldn’t be capable to appear at him in the same way.

Even although Atticus showed courage in helping Tom, folks could not take a black person’s word over a white’s. It was extremely tough for the court to take Tom Robinson’s story for the truth. Atticus’ neighbor states, “… do not see why you touched it in the 1st place… You’ve got everything to drop from this Atticus. I imply every little thing.” He is stating that Atticus has no chance in winning the case since Tom is black. Even although his neighbors didn’t assistance him assisting Tom, he knew that it was the appropriate factor to do.

Atticus showed great courage in doing the correct factor by defending Tom since he believed absolutely everyone need to be treated equally and he wanted to keep the respect of his son. Considering that Atticus values equality and justice, he still had the courage to defend a black man in court even if he knew that it wasn’t going to go their way. In reading the book, the reader sees how individuals must usually be treated equally no matter the outcome and the difficulty for a black man to win a court case in the 20th century..