To Kill A Mockingbird Essays: Why Defend a Black Man?

To Kill a Mockingbird: Why Defend a Black Man?

Why did Atticus defend a nigger? What was the point of being the advocate for a black man? It doesn't matter if their guilty or innocent, you can ceaselessly and effortlessly convict the animals for their color vice. You can even turn a blind eye to the obvious truth. And so did the "people", the white, narrow-minded, bigoted and hypocritical people of Maycomb.

The justification for why Atticus broke from the norm, and acted unlike most others in his community, can be compared to the motive of the central character in the novel, A Time To Kill, written by John Grisham. The comparative character, a lawyer named Jake, also endangers not only his own life but his family's, by defending a Negro. He is compelled to undergo such a risk as he believes he is protecting an innocent man. Despite the fact that he is black. Jake could not live with himself if he failed to give his utmost effort in clearing the accused, Carl Lee Hailey's, name. The lawyer feels that it is his obligation to humanity to do so. Similarly, the case Atticus accepts is something which goes to the essence of a man's own conscience. Atticus is unable to treat the underdogs of the town how the majority of people act towards them. Clearly the people of Maycomb are narrow-minded, bigoted and hypocritical, and Atticus Finch is not. Nothing can be done to make the prejudiced, perverse people hear the truth. This dogmatic attitude does not occur exclusively between the whites and the Negroes either. The community's unsubstantiated stories about other citizens also demonstrate their heedless to the truth and prejudiced natures.

Arthur Radley, otherwise labelled Boo, has for decades been maliciously slandered, in the county. The people that have done so do not know Arthur, and the reason they can make such judgments escapes me. When there was a series of pets being mysteriously slaughtered, the consensus was that it was performed by Boo. Later, when the culprit transpired to be someone else, most people were still rooted in the belief that Boo was to blame. They could not believe the truth. And all unsolved crimes committed, in the area, have been manufactured solely by him. If your garden freezes it is because he breathed on it and nuts and other fruits, grown on the Radley property, are considered poisonous.