Atticus Finch Monologue. analysis Gentlemen. I shall be brief. but I would wish to utilize my staying clip with you to remind you that the instance of Mayella Ewell vs. Tom Robinson is non a dif?cult one. To get down with. this instance should hold ne’er come to test. The province of Alabama has non produced one shred of medical grounds that shows that the offense Tom Robinson is charged with of all time took topographic point. This instance is every bit simple as black and white. It requires no minute winnow of complicated facts. but it does necessitate you to be certain beyond all sensible uncertainty as to the guilt of the suspect.
Miss Ewell did something that in our society is indefinable: she is white. and she tempted a Negro. The suspect is non guilty. but person in this courtroom is. I have nil but commiseration in my bosom for the main informant for the province. but my commiseration does non widen so far as to her seting a man’s life at interest. She knew full good the outrageousness of her discourtesy. but because her desires were stronger than the codification she was interrupting. she persisted. The province of Alabama has relied entirely upon the testimony of two informants who’s grounds has non merely been called into serious inquiry. but has been ?atly contradicted by the suspect.
I need non remind you of their visual aspect and behavior on the base. They have presented themselves in the misanthropic con?dence that their testimony would non be doubted. They were con?dent that you. the jury. would travel along with the evil premise that all Negro’s prevarication. and are immoral. Mr. Robinson is accused of colza. when it was she who made the progresss on him. He put his word against two white people’s. and now he is on test for no evident reason- except that he is black.
Thomas Jefferson one time said that all work forces are created equal. a phrase that the authorities is fond of hurtling at us. There is a inclination in this twelvemonth of grace. 1935. for certain people to utilize that phrase out of context. to fulfill all conditions. We know that all work forces are non created equal in the sense that some people would hold us believe.
Some people are smarter than others. some people have more chance because they are born with it. some work forces have more money than others. and some people are more talented than others. But there is one manner in this state in which all work forces are created equal. An establishment that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller. the nescient adult male the equal of any president. and the stupid adult male the equal of Einstein.
That establishment is the tribunal. But a tribunal is merely every bit sound as its jury. and the jury is merely every bit sound as the work forces who make it up. I am con?dent that you gentlemen will reexamine without passion the grounds you have heard. come to a determination. and reconstruct the suspect to his household. In the name of God. make your responsibility. In the name of God. gentlemen. believe Tom Robinson. I could hit all the bluish Jaies I wanted. if I could hit ’em. but to retrieve it was a wickedness to kill a mockingbird…Well. I reckon because mockers don’t do anything but make music for us to bask.
They don’t eat people’s gardens. don’t nest in the corncribs. they don’t do one thing but merely sing their Black Marias out for us. Atticus represents morality and ground in To Kill a Mockingbird. As a character. Atticus is even-handed throughout the narrative. He is one of the really few characters who ne’er has to rethink his place on an issue. His parenting manner is rather alone in that he treats his kids as grownups. candidly replying any inquiry they have.
He uses all these cases as an chance to go through his values on to Scout and Jem. Scout says that “‘Do you truly believe so? ’ . . . was Atticus’s unsafe question” because he delighted in assisting people see a state of affairs in a new visible radiation. Atticus uses this attack non merely with his kids. but with all of Maycomb. And yet. for all of his mature intervention of Jem and Scout. he patiently recognizes that they are kids and that they will do infantile errors and premises. Ironically. Atticus’s one
insecurity seems to be in the child-rearing section. and he frequently defends his thoughts about raising kids to those more experient and more traditional. His austere but just attitude toward Jem and Scout reaches into the courtroom every bit good. He courteously proves that Bob Ewell is a prevaricator ; he respectfully inquiries Mayella about her function in Tom’s crisis. One of the things that his longtime friend Miss Maudie admires about him is that “‘Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets. ‘”
The lone clip he earnestly lectures his kids is on the immoralities of taking advantage of those less fortunate or less educated. a doctrine he carries into the carnal universe by his refusal to run. And although most of the town readily pins the label “trash” on other people. Atticus militias that differentiation for those people who below the belt exploit others. Atticus believes in justness and the justness system. He doesn’t like condemnable jurisprudence. yet he accepts the assignment to Tom Robinson’s instance.
He knows before he begins that he’s traveling to lose this instance. but that doesn’t stop him from giving Tom the strongest defence he perchance can. And. significantly. Atticus doesn’t put so much attempt into Tom’s instance because he’s an African American. but because he is guiltless. Atticus feels that the justness system should be colour blind. and he defends Tom as an guiltless adult male. non a adult male of colour. Atticus is the grownup character least infected by bias in the novel. He has no job with his kids go toing Calpurnia’s church. or with a black adult female basically raising his kids. He admonishes Scout non to utilize racial slurs. and is careful to ever utilize the footings acceptable for his clip and civilization.
He goes to Helen’s place to state her of Tom’s decease. which means a white adult male disbursement clip in the black community. Other work forces in town would’ve sent a courier and left it at that. His deficiency of bias doesn’t apply merely to other races. nevertheless. He is unaffected by Mrs. Dubose’s acerb lingua. Miss Stephanie Crawford’s bitchy chitchat. and even Walter Cunningham’s thinly veiled menace on his life. He doesn’t retaliate when Bob Ewell spits in his face because he understands that he has wounded Ewell’s pride — the lone existent ownership this adult male has. Atticus accepts these people because he is an expert at “climb [ ing ] into [ other people’s ] tegument and walk [ ing ] around in it. ”
