Theme of Courage in Harper Lees To Kill A Mockingbird Essay -- essays

To Kill A Mockingbird is a book about courage to what extent do you agree with this? Harper Lee's first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, displays the life of a small southern family struggling through the depression in Maycomb, Alabama. Seen through the innocent eyes of a young child are the events and people of Maycomb. Courage is a major theme in the novel but there are other themes like the Hypocrisy, Protecting the innocent and Prejudice, which are brought out to the same extent. The author explores the idea of courage in the novel. Atticus shows true courage by defending Tom Robinson, a black man charged with the rape of a white woman. Atticus continues to fight for justice despite knowing he can’t win the case because he is doing what he knows is right. The town is against this†¦.. This is shown when Atticus watches over Tom Robinson outside his goal cell the night he has been moved to the local goal. There are concerns about the possibility of a lynch mob. Mrs. Dubose is another example of true courage in this novel. Mrs. Dubose always yells at the children, enraging Jem. One Day when she insults Atticus, Jem wrecks her garden. As Punishment he is forced to read to her for a month. During this time Mrs. Dubose seems in a fog and has fits towards the end of the sessions. About a month after Jem finished his punishment Mrs. Dubose Dies. Atticus explains that Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict because of her illness but she had decided that she wanted to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. By overcoming a morphine addiction, we see that Ms. Dubose was a woman of tremendous strength and character. She was not going to spend her last days as a drug addict, and despite the pain that it caused her, she succ... ...p the saintly J. Grimes Everett and the Mruna tribe in Africa they neglect to help the poor in Maycomb. They are happy to help people in another country but blatantly ignore the people in need on their own doorstep. This issue is important because it shows that how willing people are to help out people in another country but ignore the goings on of their own town. The idea of â€Å"true courage† is used throughout this text, however so are other equally important themes such as protection of the innocent, prejudice and hypocrisy. Despite that this book was written in the 1930’s it’s idea’s are still very relevant today. I feel that prejudice and hypocrisy are especially common in small towns such as Gunnedah. Although peoples attitudes towards things like racism have not completely changed we must not give up hope, we must have faith in the good of all people.