Morality In To Kill A Mockingbird

Henry Kravis once said,”If you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing. Morals are the principles on which one's judgments of right and wrong are based. The morality of a person defines what a person’s decisions will be, or could this be influenced by other things. To Kill a Mockingbird is a book written by Harper Lee about racism and justice during the Great Depression. In Maycomb County, most people still aren’t over the Confederate days, but Atticus Finch, a very ethical lawyer, and his family have to undergo a case over a black man. The thematic statement found in this book is,”A person’s surroundings will affect …show more content…
People like Atticus, who are true and have good morals have been brought up the right way, or have had many important life lessons in their childhood, can see how the community is being hypocritical. He wanted to help Tom because he couldn’t do what the others were doing because of his morals and ethics. When Atticus is asked by Judge Taylor to be the defense of Tom Robinson, he thinks about it and then decides to defend him. He thinks how the people in Maycomb county will perceive this and decides to rightly defend him. Atticus tells Scout why he defends Tom saying,”The main one is, 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) This shows Atticus’ core morals and values, he knows that Tom is innocent and he would be going against his own beliefs if he didn’t rightly defend Tom. He knows he will have to defend even his own family and beliefs when he takes on this case. This is really important to see how Atticus’ core morals are affecting his decision here, these morals are given to a person based on how they grew up and how they were raised. This shows exactly who a person is, and shows their core morals. Even a person who has not been in society for a long time will have their core morals make their decisions. Boo Radley was raised and hasn’t been out in a long time to communicate with …show more content…
When people become part of a mob situation, they get more of a mob mentality. This mob mentality makes people disregard the morals and ethics they have. They will do whatever the mob wants to do. When the lynch mob goes to the jail, they all were very angry. They were planning to all go together and lynch Tom Robinson. Someone in the mob, says this to Atticus,”You know what we want,” “Get aside from the door, Mr. Finch.”(Lee). The person is saying, you know what “we” want. The people as a group all thrive off of each other to get riled up. They all get mad, they all plan to lynch Tom, and they all plan to go get him from the jail. They let one person in the group get all of them angry. In court, Mr.Ewell is a horrible witness in the sense that he kept yelling, and screaming things out to get the courtroom excited. This is also mob mentality, because the “Mob”, in this case, is the courtroom, lets him get them all riled up and excited to do something. Mr. Ewell says this on the stand,”Well, Mayella was raisin‘ this holy racket so I dropped m’load and run as fast as I could but I run into th’ fence, but when I got distangled I run up to th‘ window and I seen—” Mr. Ewell’s face grew scarlet. He stood up and pointed his finger at Tom Robinson. “—I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!”(Lee). It says that the judge had to gavel for 5 minutes to quiet the room. Mr. Bob Ewell knew