Courage is something that we all admire but it is really hard to define. "True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job anyhow, that's what courage is." this was said by Norman Schwarzkoph (U.S. Army general). In Harper Lee novel of To Kill A Mockingbird courage was portrayed in many characters. In the book, the characters that showed the most courage are Atticus, Jem, and Calpurnia.
Atticus was one of the characters that showed many acts of courage throughout the book. The best act of courage that was shown by Atticus was when he was defending Tom Robinson who is a coloured man. Despite having his kids being told unpleasant things about their father like "nigger-lover" (Lee 110) or other racial names, Atticus still manages to explain to them what is happening by telling them "I'm simply defending a Negro-his name's Tom Robinson." (100). Atticus shows courage in defending the coloured man because he knows he is not going to win the court since he is living in a prejudice town and that his kids will have to face challenges throughout the trial. He still decides to defend Tom Robinson because he believes that is the right thing to do. Another example of how Atticus shows courage was when he sat in front of Tom Robinson jail cell. When Tom Robinson's jail cell got changed, Atticus feared that people will try to kill Tom so he sat outside the jail cell reading his newspaper. As he was reading the newspaper, the lynching mob came; "He closed it, folded it deliberately, dropped it in his lap, and pushed his hat to the back of his head. He seemed to be expecting them."(201).This is a perfect example of Atticus' heroism because he was risking his life to try and stop the lynching mob from going inside the jail cell and killing Tom Robinson. Having Atticus shown his courage throughout the book, Jem was another character who had shown his great courage.
