Did you know that doing what is right could sometimes be potentially dangerous? In my 8th grade Language Arts class, we read a book named To Kill a Mockingbird. The book takes place in a town named Maycomb during the 1390s. In the book, an African-American person named Tom Robinson was accused of raping a white person named Mayella Ewell. However, after looking at the evidence during the trial, Tom is definitely innocent. However, in the jury's final decision of the trial, Tom was wrongly accused of being guilty due to racial prejudice. A man named Atticus was the defense attorney for Tom Robinson, but it was optional for him to go on and help him. Throughout the book, Atticus demonstrates his courage, bravery, and morality. He felt a strong aversion towards the way Maycomb and most of the southern United States behaved. People in Maycomb and most …show more content…
When Atticus volunteered to defend Tom Robinson, everyone in town was questioning why he chose to. Page 75 of Chapter nine says, "...There's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man." He did not have the sole duty to defend him, but rather, to show his philosophy and equality to all the hypocrites in town. Atticus didn't really care about what people thought about him, and was single-minded to do the right thing. In Chapter 9, on page 75 Scout asks, "If you shouldn't be defending him, then why are you doing it?" Atticus responds, "The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again." Atticus felt the need to treat everyone the same. If he didn't, he'd look like a fool by showing the legislature and the town a bad paragon. He would not have pride to walk the streets without being noted as a fool without a