“…I wanted you to see what real courage is, [it’s not] a man with a gun… you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway...You rarely win, but sometimes you do...” (Lee 112). In the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama in the mid-1930s, Atticus Finch tells his children about courage. Atticus himself is rather courageous in different ways. One of his children, Scout, Also shows certain ways of being courageous. Scout’s older brother Jem has a handful of these acts as well. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, she expresses her thoughts on courage through characters and events throughout the story.
First of all, Harper Lee uses Atticus Finch to show her definition of courage. She introduces the fact that he will be defending a black …show more content…
Scout was the only one in her class that would tell her first grade teacher, Ms. Caroline, about Walter Cunningham. She explained how Walter’s family is poor. She told the teacher that by trying to give him money, Ms. Caroline is shaming him. Because of this, she got her hand slapped with a ruler for being disrespectful to the teacher (22). Scout also plays the Boo Radley Game. She is scared to play because she thinks Boo would try to hurt her, Jem, and Dill. She also thinks that Atticus knows about the game and that he does not approve of it. The boys say that she is just “being a girl”. Scout wants to be worthy to the boys and play with them so she can fit in and prove them wrong, even though she is cared to play the game (39). She is also the first one of the children to take something from the Radley property. The legend between the children of the town is that anything taken, eaten, or touched from the Radley house is poison and whoever does these acts will die. Scout takes gum from the tree in the Radley yard and chews it (60). Even the citizens of Maycomb rarely pass the Radley house. So by taking the gum, Scout “took a risk”. Even if they were in innocent, childish acts, Scout shows
First of all, Harper Lee uses Atticus Finch to show her definition of courage. She introduces the fact that he will be defending a black …show more content…
Scout was the only one in her class that would tell her first grade teacher, Ms. Caroline, about Walter Cunningham. She explained how Walter’s family is poor. She told the teacher that by trying to give him money, Ms. Caroline is shaming him. Because of this, she got her hand slapped with a ruler for being disrespectful to the teacher (22). Scout also plays the Boo Radley Game. She is scared to play because she thinks Boo would try to hurt her, Jem, and Dill. She also thinks that Atticus knows about the game and that he does not approve of it. The boys say that she is just “being a girl”. Scout wants to be worthy to the boys and play with them so she can fit in and prove them wrong, even though she is cared to play the game (39). She is also the first one of the children to take something from the Radley property. The legend between the children of the town is that anything taken, eaten, or touched from the Radley house is poison and whoever does these acts will die. Scout takes gum from the tree in the Radley yard and chews it (60). Even the citizens of Maycomb rarely pass the Radley house. So by taking the gum, Scout “took a risk”. Even if they were in innocent, childish acts, Scout shows