Examples Of Dilemmas In To Kill A Mockingbird

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In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee gives us many major dilemmas that has been solved through the ethics of their time period. Some have been solved through peaceful ways that isn’t made to hurt anyone. Then at other times, the decisions that have been made in the story didn’t make out to be the best in the end. The first example is when Atticus decides to defend the negro known as Tom Robinson. In chapter 9, Scout asked “Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?” (Lee 77). He says that he does, and that “The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.” (Lee 77). This is Atticus explaining that he is …show more content…
The jury had to come to a big conclusion on the trial, and that meant deciding whether to pronounce Tom Robinson guilty or innocent. Whenever the jury left. Jem and Scout were caught in the stands watching the trial. Whenever Atticus sends the children home to eat.“How long have they been out?” asked Jem. “‘bout thirty minutes. (Lee 185). They still hadn’t returned after the thirty minutes of waiting for the return of the jury members. This means that they were really thinking about whether to convict Robinson. When they returned, they gave the answers for the conviction. “Guilty… guilty… guilty… guilty…” (Lee 215). The jury was out for so long, discussing the ethics of why they should convict Robinson rather than the evidence on who’s truly innocent. With the reason of the jury being completely white, it was an unfair trial due to the racism of that time period. Without the reasoning of the actual evidence, they chose Robinson as the verdict, not because he was guilty, but because he was a black man. If the jury would of have pronounced Robinson innocent, the story would of changed majorly. Robinson wouldn’t have died in prison and Bob Ewell may of gotten rejected by everyone because of his