Alexander C.
English 9-Period 1
22 October 2009
Courage and Cowardice; What’s the Difference?
There are many people who are courageous, but there are even more people who are cowardly, but the question is, why does it matter? Courage and cowardice are two very different things that are closely related. The difference between the two is that one keeps things the way they are and the other has the power to change the world for the better. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there are many examples of both. There are bound to be acts of cowardice in the Great Depression, but there also has to be courage to help people get through it.
Tom Robinson, a man who has been accused of rape by Bob Ewell, a man who suffers from “sin and squalor” (Lee 234), displays cowardice in various ways. Though Tom may be a coward at times, he shows more courage than cowardice. Tom Robinson was sent to a state prison after being convicted and he may have been afraid to face the people who tried to kill him the night at the jailhouse. Tom seemed to be so afraid of the people that he charged at the fence of the prison knowing he would get attacked. As Tom jumped the fence gunshot after gunshot was sent through his body. The guards were alarmed by Tom’s “blind raving charge at the fence” (Lee 238) and shot him 17 times, leaving him dead. Though Tom was killed he displayed a lot of courage while he was alive, like when he was giving his testimony in the courtroom. The town of Maycomb was racist and didn’t think much of black people. While Tom Robinson, a black man, was sitting at the stand he gave a testimony saying that Mayella Ewell, a white woman, jumped on him, not him jumping on her like he was accused of. It takes true courage to be a black man and say you’re innocent when you’re being accused by a white woman in the 1930’s when everyone is racist.
There are many examples of courage and cowardice shown throughout the book but the scene that stands out more than the others is when Atticus was sitting outside the jailhouse. In chapter 15, a mob went to try to kill Tom Robinson at the jail that he was residing. Atticus knew that somebody was going to try to harm Tom so he went to the jailhouse and waited for something to happen. As the mob approached, Atticus stood up to the mob to try to prevent them from getting to Tom. Atticus kept telling everyone “You can turn around and go home” (Lee 153), the mob refused to leave. Scout and Jem knew their father, Atticus was up to something. Scout and Jem went to the jailhouse to make sure their father was alright. The mob was formed by a bunch of grown men and they get stopped by a man and his kids, the men were too afraid to make contact with a man and his kids so they all just left, what cowards. The men of the mob are cowards because they went to the jailhouse to kill Tom but didn’t do anything to Atticus, Jem and Scout. If they were there to kill Tom, why not just kill the Finches too, because they were too afraid and were probably just in a blind rage and probably weren’t going to kill Tom in the first place.
As you can see, courage and cowardice can really decide who a person is. Tom Robinson may have been a coward to try to escape his problems, but he also had the courage to tell the truth about Mayella. The big deal about Tom telling the truth about Mayella is that it was wrong for a black man to be saying bad things about a white person. It was important for Tom to tell the truth because he got the truth out to the people and it may change the way they view people. Atticus on the other is a courageous man all around, he could be standing in front of mob and not feel the least bit of fear, and in fact he did. Atticus had the courage to stand up to the mob at the jailhouse and prevented them from killing Tom. The importance of Atticus stopping the mob is that he gave Tom the chance tell the truth, though Atticus didn’t know it yet. The people of the mob were all cowards the night Atticus stood up to them; they went to the jailhouse to kill a man but ended doing nothing because a couple of kids and their father were there. After everybody had given their testimony the people of the mob did the only bad thing they could to Tom, convict him. This act is the most obvious that shows that if you’re a coward or courageous it shows who you are.
Cowards like the people from the mob do nothing to help the world; courageous people like Atticus and Tom, they helped change the way people of Maycomb looked at racism. Courage and cowardice are interlaced but are two very different things. Examples from the book To Kill a Mockingbird shows that courage and cowardice help people, and it definitely helped get people through The Great Depression.
Works Cited
Lee, Harper To Kill a Mockingbird. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1961.
