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Solomon Lo

Ms. Kelly

Honors English 9 - Block 2

25 April 2016

True Courage

In today’s society, many people measure their own amount of courage by looking at what

other people think of them. Whether it is by doing crazy stunts to see how their friends will react,

or posting spectacular things on Instagram, some people feel the need to prove their

courageousness to others by showing off how much fearlessness they have. They also gauge how

much courage they have by what their peers say about them, and how much respect and

admiration they receive from them. However, in the book ​To Kill A Mockingbird,​ Harper Lee

wrote us a reminder of what true courage is, and how it is completely different from this modern

paradigm of courage. She does this by including an underlying theme of how true courage is

about starting something and seeing it through, despite struggles and hardships along the way.

For example, true courage would be how Ms. Maudie disagreed with the foot-washing

baptists and refused to listen to their threats. Foot-washing baptists are people who believe that

anything that is a pleasure is a sin. In ​To Kill A Mockingbird, ​there is a group of foot-washing

baptists who constantly threaten Ms. Maudie. This was because they saw her flowers as a

pleasure, so therefore, it was a sin. According to an account from Ms. Maudie, “Foot-washers

believe anything that’s pleasure is a sin. Did you know some of ‘em came out of the woods one

Saturday and passed by this place and told me me and my flowers were going to hell?”(Lee, 44).

However, despite the threats that the foot-washing baptists kept on giving, Ms. Maudie decided
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to keep her flowers. Ms. Maudie was willing to withstand the constant harassment by the

foot-washing baptists because she wanted to protect what she loved doing, which was taking care

of her flowers. By not following what the foot-washing baptists say, Ms. Maudie shows true

courage, because she didn’t let the hardships and struggles caused by the foot-washing baptists’

threats stop her from doing what she loved.

In addition to this, true courage was shown when Ms. Dubose got rid of her morphine

addiction. According to Atticus, “Ms. Dubose was a morphine addict. She took it as a pain-killer

for years. The doctor put her on it. She’d have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so

much agony, but she was too contrary,”(Lee, 111). Even though she could’ve had an easy death

by staying on morphine, Ms. Dubose chose to “leave this world beholden to nothing and

nobody.”(Lee, 111). She wanted to do what was right by not being controlled by anyone or

anything. Ms. Dubose shows true courage when she understood the pain and hardships of

quitting her morphine addiction, but starts doing it anyways. This also shows true courage

because Ms. Dubose was willing to keep persevering in her process to quit morphine, even

though that process caused her to suffer and be in pain.

Another example of true courage was how Atticus reacted to Bob Ewell when Ewell

attacked him. According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, “Atticus was leaving the post office when

Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him.”(Lee, 217).

However, instead of retaliating, Atticus chose to stand down and peacefully walk away. Later,

when Jem asked Atticus to do something about the death threat, Atticus said that since he had

destroyed all of Bob Ewell’s credibility during the trial, Bob Ewell had to have some kind of

comeback. In order to save other people from being targeted by this comeback, he had to let
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himself be threatened and attacked. This would cause Bob Ewell to let out his anger on him,

rather than on other people, (Lee, 218). True courage was shown by Atticus when he was willing

to be attacked by Bob Ewell. Despite Bob Ewell’s threat on Atticus’ life, Atticus was willing to

go through whatever hardships or pain was necessary. This was because Atticus put having Bob

Ewell’s anger fall on him, instead of other people, as a higher priority than his own wellbeing.

True courage was shown when Atticus put other people’s health over his own, even though it

might lead to him being attacked or killed.

Furthermore, another example of true courage was when Boo Radley came out of his

house to defend Scout, even though it forced Boo Radley to expose himself. Close to the end of

To Kill A Mockingbird,​ Heck Tate explains how “To my way of thinkin’, Mr. Finch, taking the

one man who’s done you and this town a a great service an’ draggin’ him with his shy ways into

the limelight --to me, that’s a sin,”(Lee, 276). Boo Radley was willing to possibly get killed in

order to save Jem and Scout. He also risked being forced to talk or interact with the people

around him, which he was obviously uncomfortable with doing. However, he still went outside

to save Jem and Scout from certain death. This shows true courage because Boo Radley was

willing to expose himself in order to save Jem and Scout, even though he was very

uncomfortable with being around other people.

Harper Lee includes an underlying theme in ​To Kill A Mockingbird​ by stating how

courage is gained by persevering through hard time and struggles to finish what you’ve started.

Ms. Maudie, Ms. Dubose, Atticus, and Boo Radley were all different people who showed this

type of true courage in different ways. From standing up to serious threats to saving someone’s

life, these characters from many different situations all persevered, even though there was a lot
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of struggles and hardships. These character all show that true courage is needed in order to push

through difficulties and hardships. Without true courage, people would be too afraid to do great

things.
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Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960. Print.