“Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand”
By this he means that anyone with a gun in their hand will win over somebody without. The gun equals the power and it is not courageous to win over someone or something that is defenseless or more disadvantaged to you. I think this is one of Harper Lees messages about racism; the white people have the power whereas the black people do not. Harper Lee has included this scene as an analogy towards the undeserved power that the white people had over the black. Scout and Jem, as children, saw this as an act of physical courage, perhaps a better example of Atticus presenting courage is in chapter 9 when we first learn that he is to take on Tom Robinson’s case.
Atticus tries to prepare Scout for the trial by explaining to her what is going on; when Scout asks why Atticus is doing it he replies,
“For a number of reasons, the main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town. Every lawyer gets at least one case that affects him personally. This ones mine.” (pg 82)
Atticus is showing moral courage by taking on Tom Robinson’s case. He knows he is fighting a loosing battle but still decided to consent to fight for Tom until the end. Scout doesn’t understand why her father would want to fight a case that he knew he was going to loose, so he tries to explain,
“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win” (pg 82)
Here Atticus is referring to black people being forced into slavery, for Tom Robinson is black and whether or not he is innocent that will not be taken into account for he happened to be born with coloured skin. Atticus is not a racist and proves this by standing up for Tom even though most of his community thinks he is doing wrong. Atticus knows that Tom is innocent and he believes that the truth will prevail over prejudice. This shows Atticus to be a fair, strong willed man, he is courageous to withstand against the racists and stand up for what he believes in.
Telling the truth can be a courageous thing to do, sometimes it’s a lot easier to lie. Tom Robinson showed amazing courage by standing up in court and telling the whole of Maycome what happened. Tom knew people would disbelieve him, yet he still got up there and defended his honour with the strongest defense ever – the truth. Mayella Ewell made an allegation that Tom Robinson raped her, whereas we no she tried to kiss him but he refused her advances. He then ran, scared of the situation, for he knew the superiority placed on white people, he knew that her word would be taken as gospel. Tom Robinson whilst up in the stand made the misdemeanor of saying,
“I felt right sorry for her” (pg 203)
The audience at the trial and the prosecution went wild at this remark. How dare a black person feel sorry for a white person? It was thought of as a put down, when all Tom Robinson was doing was being caring. We learnt earlier in the novel that the Ewell family was whit trash whilst Tom Robinson was a highly respected working class member of the black community. Surely his word was better than the Ewell’s, but people didn’t think like that. They didn’t look to the evidence or to families. They couldn’t see past his skin. Tom Robinson whilst on the stand presented a different type of courage, the courage of his own conviction. The prosecution tried to humiliate Tom Robinson and Dill, a young friend of Scout’s, became very distraught and left the courtroom, only to lead us into another example of courage shown by Mr. Dolphus Raymond.
Scout thinks that Mr. Raymond is a sinful man because he lives with a black woman and has mixed race children; this was absolutely against the moral code of the time. Scout also knows that Dolphus Raymond is a drunk, so when she sees him, she is instantly wary. Mr. Raymond talks to Dill and we find out that he is not a drunk at all and that all he drinks is Coca-cola. Scout doesn’t understand why Mr. Dolphus Raymond would make out he was a drunk if he wasn’t; it’s like making people think worse of you than they need to. Mr. Raymond defends himself by saying that he lives how he does (with a black woman and mixed children) because that’s how he wants to live.
“I try to give ‘em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch on to a reason. Folks can say Dolphus Raymond’s in the clutches of whisky that’s why he won’t change his ways.” (pg 207)
This illustrates another form of courage in that Dolphus Raymond is trying to help the people of Maycome by giving them a reason to believe that’s why he lives like that. It would torture the ordinary people that a white man wanted to live with a black woman because he loved her. This kind of courage is to help others, not himself. He cares about them even though they only gossip about him.
My last example of courage, I feel is by far the greatest, others may disagree but when reading these last chapters of the novel my heart felt warm and thankful to Boo Radley for confronting his own demons to save the lives of two innocent children. When Mr. Ewell tried to kill both Scout and Jem because Atticus had shown him up in court, Boo could have turned his back and shut the curtains but instead he chose to break his habit of a lifetime and leave the house. This must have been very difficult for Boo as he was institutionalised. After saving the children Mr. Tate the town sheriff decided that there was no need to penalise Boo he was not a murderer just a man who helped two innocent children. When Atticus implied this to Scout she said,
“Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mocking-bird, wouldn’t it?” (pg 282)
This statement shows how Scout has grown and matured throughout the book, she understands that Boo is helpless like a child and that it would be wrong to harm him when all he has done is helped them.
When it was time for Boo Radley to go home he showed courage by asking a child, Scout, to ‘take him home’ this is a type of courage which shows he is not afraid to ask for help, or admit to his fears; his fears of the outside world. In the last few pages when Scout has escorted Boo home she stands on the steps of the Radley porch and looks around. She now understands why Boo stays in his house, he is afraid of people of what people have turned into, he sees people’s prejudices and the discrimination against others and he doesn’t want to be a part of that world. Now that takes courage.
