When Scout and Jem discover what turns out to be a rabid dog heading for their neighborhood, Mr. This understanding of what courage means and what worth is begins to break down in February, before Tom Robinson’s trial. In this sense, Scout and Jem tie a person’s worth to what they can do, but only if their capabilities are immediately visible to others. In Jem and Scout’s understanding, Atticus isn’t as courageous or as admirable as the other Maycomb fathers, simply because he’s a lawyer, which means that his contribution to the world isn’t something entirely tangible, unlike other fathers who are farmers or shop owners. ![]() This is supported as time goes on and Jem in particular, who loves football, is mortified that Atticus is the only father in town who doesn’t play in the inter-church football game because of his age. Though Jem is a little old for fights like this, he, too, thinks of fighting as a more or less appropriate way to demonstrate one’s courage. When the reader first meets Scout, she believes that she’s very courageous: she’s hotheaded and consistently gets in fights to defend what she believes is right. Instead, it’s about thinking about something and choosing to do what’s right, even if doing so is difficult or guaranteed to fail. Instead, the novel proposes that courage isn’t about winning. ![]() ![]() However, the novel makes it abundantly clear that this understanding of courage is immature at best and is possibly wrong altogether. Many people in To Kill a Mockingbird confuse courage with strength and believe that courage is the ability or willingness to use strength to get one’s way.
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