Silent Moral Courage In Literature

Mark Twain once said, “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage is so rare.” Mark Twain calls attention to the differing types of courage. It is very true that classic heroic courage is significantly easier to see to the common man. For instance, if a dog is stuck in a burning building the obvious, and ethically right thing to do is to get the dog out. In that situation it is easy to see the heroic action that is happening, however, situations of silent moral courage often go unnoticed. This type of fortitude usually illustrates cases in which there will be an action that is not clear to a normal person. Courage is often portrayed in literature, in example, Mrs. Dubose from Harper Lee’s To Kill

a Mockingbird clearly showed silent moral courage by doing something that caused her to go through an immense amount of pain even though she knew the end result would not be good anyway. This takes a vast amount of bravery, yet a typical person would not be able to identify it because they are not in her shoes to see.

So too, in the short story by Dorothy Johnson, “The Day the Sun Came Out,” the protagonist, Mary, represented another case of silent moral courage. In a very short amount of time, Mary had to take on a ‘motherly role’ for the children around her, and that came with putting them before herself. Mary had to do things that ultimately made her seem like the worst human ever, but it was not for her own good, it was for the sake of the children. These actions that she did could have risked her life, and it was just another case where the people around her were blind to this act of heroism. Despite the fact that both characters are living in completely different times and places, silent moral courage is perfectly displayed in both Mrs. Dubose from, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Mary, the protagonist, in “The Day the Sun Came

Out.”
To begin, silent moral courage is shown by both characters because Mrs.

Dubose and Mary undertook tasks that they knew could have hurt them in the end, but continued to do them and would face the defeat if it came to that. For instance, Mrs. Dubose was committed to her principle of dying free in spite of the fact that she knew that she would die anyway. She was afflicted with cancer and a morphine addiction, and to die free meant that she had to quit taking the morphine. It takes a wholehearted a strong person to put themselves through that pain, and despite what Mrs. Dubose may have seemed like from the outside, she put herself through the most astonishing painful ordeal one could think of to meet her goal. Lee states, “Her face was the color of a dirty pillowcase, and the corners of her mouth glistened with wet, which inched like a glacier down the deep grooves enclosing her chin. Old-age liver spots dotted her cheeks, and her pale eyes had black pinpoint pupils. Her hands were knobby, and the cuticles were grown up and over her fingernails. Her bottom plate was not in, and her upper lip protruded; from time to time she would draw her nether lip to her upper plate and carry her chin with it. This made the wet move faster,” (142). This was an “episode” that was apart of the withdrawal that she suffered from, and it meant that it was time for more morphine. It was an ongoing cycle of this happening, and it meant that she was getting closer to her goal of being fully off of

it, but again, it takes a very courageous person to put themselves through a vicious cycle like this just so they can die freely. Likewise, Mary from the short story, “The Day the Sun Came Out” once again illustrated silent moral courage in her doings for the children around her. Mary came from an abusive family, and during the early 1900’s food was sparse where they were, and there was a high risk of starvation. During her travels, she joins a new group where she is not welcome and is pretty lonely and quiet. When Pa, the father of the group leaves to go try to find more food she is left in charge of the children. From there she must go find food for them, and try to be a “motherly” figure for them. When she goes out that night to try to find food, she comes back with a humongous mushroom that she found. For the sake of the children, she had to try the mushroom first and keep it from them until she knew it was totally safe. Yet again, mary displays a perfect example of someone doing something that they knew could potentially harm them but continuing anyway. Some may think that doing something for other people that may risk their own lives is just another example of classic heroic courage, but this action is not typically observed by the everyday person. Not everyone would just accept that it may not end very well for them and continue to do it like they would taking a cat out a tree. To conclude, Mary and Mrs. Dubose never ceased to quit even if it meant life or death, and it took people out of the ordinary, like them, to continue to do the unimaginable.
Furthermore, Mary and Mrs. Dubose both took on righteous missions to not only help others, but themselves too, yet they continued to receive the utmost brutal hate from the people around them. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Mrs. Dubose was despised by Jem and Scout Finch. Mrs. Dubose was mean to them by always talking trash about their father or how they dressed, et cetera. One day when Jem and Scout were walking to town, Mrs. Dubose took it too far by calling their father “no better than the niggers and trash he works for” (Lee, 135), and Jem reacted by cutting off the tips of her camellia bushes. For doing this, Jem and Scout had to read to her every day for a month, but what they were “blind” to was the fact that they were helping her get off of her morphine. Jem and Scout continued to hate on Mrs. Dubose despite the fact that she was going through such a painful time. They did not see the courage it took for her to be willing to do this, and because of that they still acted with hatred towards her. On the same token, when Mary found the enormous mushroom and did not allow the children to eat it until morning, they did not understand that it was for their own good. They were starving and they thought that Mary was being the worst human ever by not letting them eat the mushroom, but what they did not know is that she was doing it so that she knew they would not get hurt. In the short story it states, “If I had Pa’s rifle, I’d be willing to kill her right then and there,” (Johnson, 103). At that time kids had the most intense loathe for her that they were willing to kill when all she was trying to do is help them. It took them a long time to realize what she had done for them, but even in the time of what had happened, it should have been clear that it takes courage for someone they barely knew to risk their lives to save others. Many might say that being hated on by people is just a normal part of life and that it does not take endurance or determination to get over it, but in reality, both Mrs. Dubose and Mary suffered from the most intense hatred from all people around them. They were both going through some rough times and it is not every day that someone is willing to kill you because they hate you so much, and typically someone who knows that another person hates them is not going to be willing to put themselves through what Mrs. Dubose and Mary did. All in all, there was a complete lack of respect for what each character had done for other people, and for who they truly are, and despite what others may see them as does not mean it is true because they may be blind to the truth.