To Kill a Mockingbird: Real courage is not a man with a gun in his hand

“…Real courage is not a man with a gun in his hand…”1 This single statement, made by Atticus Finch mid-way through To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, summarises the core message of the book. If you are unfamiliar with the story, it is basically about a court case of a Negro in racist times, seen through the eyes of a child. However, the story strikes a cord with so many people not because of it’s subject matter, serious as it is, but of the ideals of a central Atticus Finch. Like an American version of Confucius, peppered throughout the book is snippets of philosophy, and the aforementioned one about courage I believe is one of the key ideas the author wished us to remember.

So what is courage, exactly? It is more than a person’s weapons or means of defence. A man with a gun is no more courageous than a man with a stick, or in the case of the novel, a good argument. Anyone can point a weapon and pull the trigger, but it takes true guts to stand up in front of a group...