Being Courageous Essay, Research Paper

I think that one of the most important qualities a person can have is

being courageous. If a person doesn?t have courageous and doesn?t take

risks, they can never accomplish what they wish to do in life. A courageous

person is an accomplished person! In this book, Atticus is the father of two

wonderful and intelligent children. He showed them moral courage (Mrs. Dubose), losing battles (Tom Robinson?s case), and just plain courage (the Radley home).

Mrs. Dubose was an old woman. Jem and Scout were terrified of the

horrible woman. The reason why they were so scared was because she was

always in an ugly mood. Whenever they would pass her house she would

criticize how Scout dressed, talked, acted, and that her father had done a

terrible job of raising her. The only thing that the children didn?t understand

was that she was trying to fight a battle. This battle was that Mrs. Dubose

was a morphine addict. She took the morphine because she was very ill and

without out it she would have been in too much pain. She wished to die free

and clean, so she tried to stop herself. Therefore, everyday she would have

Jem read to her, and the next day a little longer, and longer, etc. So that was

how she tried. This I think is called moral courage and she won!

Thomas Robinson was an innocent man. He did not commit any

crime against Mayella Ewell; the judge knew that, the jury, and so did

Mayella Ewell. He was falsely accused of raping Mayella on November

twenty-first. All he ever did was help her by helping her around her home.

If not in the 1930?s did people believe a white man?s story over a black

man?s story even if the white man were lying then Tom would have been

found not guilty. Because people were so prejudice this happen to a lot of

black innocent people. Tom Robinson thought that he would never be set

free and thought that the police would kill him anyways so he tried to run

away but got caught and got killed. He knew he was fighting a losing battle

so he died.

In part one Jem showed his courage in many ways. For example, when Jem, Scout, and Dill went to the Radley home and almost got caught,

and more importantly got killed. Since, Jem respected his father so much he

went back to get his pants because he didn?t want Atticus to not be able to

trust him. I think that was very courageous of Jem because he saved his

trust with Atticus but it was also stupid because he could have died!

In conclusion, Atticus wanted his children to learn to make mistakes

and take chances and to learn for their mistakes. It is always important to

make mistakes because you learn from the mistakes. If you don?t you can

never succeed in life because you?ll always be afraid to do anything. Also,

to never give up on what you really want to do or if you know your right

about something. For example, Mrs. Dubose wanted to stop the morphine

and since she kept her mind to it she won. Also, Tom Robinson was a good

example too because he gave up and look how he ended up: dead.