To Kill A Mockingbird Literary Analysis

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To Kill A Mockingbird Literary Response: Defining Courage At the beginning of the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” the main character, Scout, and her brother,Jem, have very different views of what courage is than at the end of part one and first few chapters of part two. At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout view more juvenile and public acts of “bravery” as courageous. An example of a time when we are able to see the siblings’ thoughts of courage is through their fascination in Boo Radley and their attempts to learn more about him. As Boo Radley is somewhat of a recluse, Jem and Scout are very curious about him, as a result of their curiosity they spend much of their time in the summer attempting to make the elusive Boo Radley emerge…show more content…
A time when we are able to see their appreciation for non public acts of courage is through Atticus’ choosing to defend Tom Robinson, even though he would be criticized for it. When Jem and Scout start hearing horrible things about their father because he took on the case of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman, they begin to question why their father would take on such a case. They were later told by their father that if he did not do the case, that he would not be able to face them. This altered their perspective of courage by allowing them to see that be standing up for what you believe in, you could be doing something brave and courageous as well. Another event which shows their matured view of courage is their recognition of the courage Mrs. Dubose had. When Jem and Scout hear that Mrs. Dubose has passed, they also find out that she had an addiction to morphine, but decided to be free of that addiction before she died, as we first heard about when Atticus said, “She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. Jem, when you're sick as she was, it's all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn't all right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that's what she did. ” (148).…show more content…
The first situations I think of are those of the individuals who fought for their rights, specifically the black community when trying to have an integrated society. Ernest Green was one of the Little Rock Nine, the first group of African-American teenagers to ever go to Little Rock Central High School, Ernest Green was also the first African-American student to ever graduate from Little Rock Central High School. As Ernest and the Little Rock Nine were attending Little Rock Central High School, there were many riots that were held outside of the school, and in the school itself the Little Rock Nine were being attacked by other pupils almost daily. For the Little Rock Nine to even stay in Little Rock Central High School took immense amounts of courage and it would have been much easier, and safer, for the Little rock Nine to give up and go back to their old schools. But because they didn’t give in to the inequality they were facing, Little Rock Central High School is now a desegregated High
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