Courage in To Kill a Mockingbird
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This study will examine the characters in Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird in order to define the nature of courage. Atticus Finch, a clearly heroic figure in the novel, who lives according to high principle, offers a definition of courage as "when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what" (112). This definition seems to have more to do with stubbornness or determination rather than courage. Atticus' definition would seem to hold that a career criminal is courageous, for such a criminal knows that he will be caught and punished sooner or later. Was Hitler courageous when he set out to conquer the world and establish a one-thousand-year German reign, when he must have known on some level that it was impossible, yet he began? Simple stubbornness, determination, sticktoitiveness, or plain delusional acts do not courage make. Neither is courage in my view contained in the desire of Mrs. Dubose to live and die "beholden to nothing and nobody" (112). Such a yearning seems to denote more misanthropy than courage. Courage, to the contrary, would be the ability to recognize the interdependence of flawed human beings and the rewards such mutual "beholdenness" brings to all of us. To be, courage must have to do with some higher principle---especially truth---rather than simply being an internal force which drives one willfully to begin and follow through on an impossible task. If the task is unworthy, the effort can hard
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. . . It's not okay to hate anybody" (246). This scene shows that despite one's upbringing, it is up to the individual to follow the courage of his or her own convictions and make his or her own decisions with respect to what is right and wrong. Scout will indeed follow her father in leading a life free of hatred, but it took her individual and independent courage, and not merely her father's teachings, to decide to live without hatred. After all, she had the example of her teacher Miss Gates which could have led her to harbor hatred of blacks. Miss Gates was clear in her judgment of Hitler and her praise of Jews, but she showed her true colors in her comments on blacks (247). Scout thinks for herself, a sign of courage, as long as that independent thought leads the thinker to a more compassionate and realistic view of humanity. Scout says of Miss Gates: "How can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home?" (247).
What allows Scout to absorb her father's humane teachings is an intuition that all people are truly equal, that all deserve justice and respect. Whatever Atticus tells her about courage being following through in seeking a goal which seems out of reach, Scout knows that courage is
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Approximate Word count = 1661
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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