Courage (To Kill a Mockingbird Blog)

            Sitting in my cozy chair by my window, I watched as the predicted storm blew in from the west. It was going to be a doozey they said, so I figured this would be the perfect day of my spring break to dive into To Kill a Mockingbird for a second time. I had read this novel before (like I’m sure many of you had), but I was really excited to get a new perspective on it as a 19-year old college student as opposed to a 13-year old middle schooler.  

            With the storm now in full-force with thunder blaring, I came to a part that truly made an impact on me at that moment. Atticus says to Jem, “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. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” In this quote, Atticus refers to Mrs. Dubose’s insistence to beat her morphine addiction before she died, just so she could die a free woman.

            After reading that part of the book, I couldn’t help but pause and think about what that really means. This old lady had a choice between dying pain-free but attached to a drug or wracked with pain but attached to nothing at all. She chose the hardest route possible. Just the same, Atticus chose the absolute hardest route in defending Tom. Yes, he was required to do so, but the extent to which he tried to win the case was the bravest part of all. He endured ridicule and even the ridicule of his children and did it with a wholeheartedly.

            In the beginning of the book, Scout doesn’t understand why they can’t just lie to their friends about why their dad is defending Tom. She has no concept of courage and doing the right thing just for the sake of doing the right thing. But by the end of the novel, I think Scout truly understands that courage is something that she must have in order to become a ‘grown-up’. I think when she led Boo back to the Radley house, she showed that she had earned her ‘badge of courage’ per say.

            I know this blog isn’t necessarily supposed to analyze the characters, but I just found the growing of Scout’s courage to be something so interesting that I couldn’t help but talk about it. The whole time I was reading the novel I couldn’t help but grow so fond of Scout’s benevolence toward things that no one else cared for, and how she could come to defend them. By the time I finished the book, I seriously wished that there were a sequel that could show how she turned out in her later years from having Atticus as a father through all of her childhood experiences.

            I guess I had never thought of courage as something we all have to learn during our growing up. We have to have it in order to not be afraid of the monsters under the bed, and so that we can do what’s right even if we don’t want to. Although she may just be a little girl, I think the story she ‘tells’ can inspire others to have just a tiny bit of courage too.