Courage At Its Best
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt. There are ways of showing courage beyond a physical state. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the main character Scout and her family learns this and shows true courage throughout their story. They face people who judge them, they choose not to fight back, and they see what true courage is from deferent people. Through many struggles, Scout and her family show true courage and have their lives changed forever.
Its hard when people judge, and they really want to stand up to them, or fit in. Scout stands up to her teacher to explain something about a fellow classmate. He comes from a poor family and cannot afford a lunch. The teacher, Miss Caroline, offers him 3 quarters, but he will not accept them because his family doesnt take things they cant pay back. I turned around and saw most of the town people and the entire bus delegation looking at meMiss Caroline, hes a Cunningham I thought I had made myself perfectly clearhe didnt forget his lunch, he didnt have any(20). After, Scout is punished after and she had already started off on the wrong foot before. This was very brave for a 6 year old girl, she tried to stand up for what she knew and she also had the guts to do it in front of the whole class.
Atticus, Scouts father, is a lawyer, and he takes on a case that will be looked down upon in the society of Maycomb, which is where they live. He has decide to represent a black man, Since their story takes place in the 1930s in a Southern town, he bring shame on his family. A neighbor of Scouts, Ms. Dubose, has always been rued to the children. She always has something to say to them, and its never nice. One day she starts talking about the case Atticus is taking on. She just insults him like the rest of the town. Yes indeed, what has this world come to when a Finch foes against his raising?Your fathers no better than the trash he works for!(102). But Scout keeps her head held high and ignores all of the towns taunts because she knows that Atticus is doing the right thing.
Two memorable acts of courage I found in this book were from the characters Atticus, and Ms. Dubose. Ms. Dubose just seems like a mean old bitter lady but she actually shows real courage and strength in this story. Atticus has many acts of courage but one that really kind of stops the town is when he has to shoot a dog with rabies. Tim Johnson was the dogs name and he had been walking around town with this horrible sickness. Atticus had a secret talent that he wasnt proud of. He could kill whatever he wanted with one shot of a gun. But he had not used that talent for a very long time because he thought God had giving him an unfair advantage over all living things, Wonder why he never goes huntin now, I said. Maybe I can tell you, said Mss Maudie. If your fathers anything, hes civilized in his heart I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decide he wouldnt shoot till he had to, and had to today(98). That was one act that had more to do with a physical state. The other was a battle of the mind. Ms. Dubose was addicted to morphine and she knew she was about to die. She wanted to die free of that substance and have her head clear. Jem, Scouts brother, had messed up her flower bed, and to repay her, he was to read to her for a month. During that month they stayed a little longer each day and that helped her get through the time she needed to take the morphine. Atticus knew all of this and that is why he wanted Jem to read to her, I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. Its when you know youre licked before you begin but you being anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win but sometimes you do, Ms. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholding to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew(112).
Courage is in everyday life. It shows up in sometimes the most unlikely places and also when we expect it to. Harper Lee portrayed this theme very well in this book. From Atticus taking on a controversial case to shooting a dog for the whole town. I think Atticus is the epitome of the protagonist of all stories. Scout shows courage, but in more subtle ways. But they should not be over looked. Courage is a thing that we all gain through are experiences in life. We learn more about our selves from them and ultimately we become better people.
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