Courage Within "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Essay by noelckc August 2006

download word file, 3 pages 3.0

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee demonstrates that courage is fighting what you believe in no matter the consequence. Fighting for your thoughts and morals all the way to the end, without regard for what people or society as a whole think. The mentality of many is that courage is not having fear or being afraid. A person who has never been hit by a car is not afraid only because that person has no reason to be afraid. This example is not courage, but ignorance. Courage is getting into a situation were the outcome is not in your favor, but you jumping in anyways with the hope that you might be able to have a favorable outcome.

Atticus has a definition that "real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin" he precedes to explain that, "you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

This statement has an amount of power and meaning that is phenomenal because it shows the fight against the human response to shun these scenarios and to welcome these certain problems with open arms along with the prejudice and hate that accompany these actions. The application of this statement outside of the Finch family is one of Mrs. Dubose fighting an addiction to morphine and trying to remain alive without the use of the medicine changing the way she sees and feels the world, morphine. Though this medicine can help ease the pain of her slow and painful death, she fights the addiction even though she knows she it is going to hurt without the morphine. Mrs. Dubose chooses to not use the morphine because it is addictive and she doesn't want to die with a morphine addiction. The courage she possesses by trying to end her morphine...