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Atticus Finch from Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird responds significantly to injustice many times throughout the story. There are many examples where Atticus made an attempt to change something, or do something because he felt like what was happening was wrong. Atticus was always the person in maycomb that was given the tough jobs that no one else wanted to do, and he did them because he didn’t think that it was right just to let it be.
An example of a time when Atticus responds to injustice is earlier on in the story when Jem, Scout, and Dill were playing Boo Radley, and Atticus said, “Stop tormenting that man.” (Lee 65). Atticus was very upset when seeing this, and he felt like he had to do something to stop it. Atticus wanted to jump in to stop what was happening because he believed what they were doing was being rude to the Radley household. Atticus’ attempt to stop injustice in this case was somewhat successful; Dill, Jem, and Scout stopped playing Boo Radley at the time, but they were still attempting to interact with Boo after this happened. Although this seems to have little significance at the time, it hints that Atticus will not let something that’s wrong happen in the future.
Another part of the story when Atticus was responding to injustice is when Jem was angry at Mrs. Dubose and ruined her yard. Atticus, after seeing this decided that he would make Jem go over to Mrs. Dubose’s house and apologize for what he had done. Atticus made Jem apologize even though Jem’s reason for getting angry was because Mrs. Dubose insulted Atticus. Although Atticus did not like being insulted, he knew what was right, and what was wrong, and no matter what the reason was, he was going to make Jem go to Mrs. Dubose’s to read to her. Atticus could have easily not punished Jem at all, and just be mad about what Mrs. Dubose said, but that’s not the type of person that Atticus is, and he knows that and wants to stay that way.
One of the biggest, and most important parts in the story where Atticus responds to injustice is during the Tom Robinson case. Although almost nobody there wants Tom Robinson to win the case, Atticus still tries his best to prove him innocent. During the trial he was not only trying to prove Tom Robinson innocent, but also prove that Mr. Ewell was responsible for what happened. One of the first things that Atticus asked about during the trial were Mayela Ewell’s injuries; Both Officer Heck Tate and Bob Ewell agreed that she had a black eye on the right side of her face. After learning that, Atticus gave Bob Ewell a piece of paper to write his name on. When Bob Ewell was writing, Atticus noticed that Bob was writing with his left hand. Atticus did not say that if you were punching someone with your left hand, it would hit the right side of their face, but it is implied, and people notice why he was trying to point out that he was left handed. When asked to point to the person who raped her, she pointed to Tom Robinson. After Tom stood up, scout said, “His left arm was fully 12 inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand” (Lee 248). Knowing that Tom only had one working arm, Atticus had trapped Mayella.
When Atticus started asking questions about how Tom had done all of that with one arm, Mayella stopped answering his questions. This was a clear sign that Mayella was lying about what actually happened. Atticus put a lot of effort into proving that Tom Robinson was innocent, and he did this because he knew that Tom was innocent and that he didn’t deserve any punishment. In Atticus’ eyes nobody deserves to be punished for something that they didn’t do. Atticus knew that Tom Robinson being locked up, or even killed for a crime that he didn’t do would be an injustice, and he was willing to fight for Tom because of that. If Atticus thought that Tom Robinson was guilty, he would not have defended him like that, but because Atticus knew that he was innocent, and that it would be wrong if he was proven guilty, he tried his hardest to prove to everyone that Tom Robinson was innocent. Although Atticus did try his best to defend Tom Robinson, his search for justice was not successful. After it had seemed clear that Tom was innocent, he was still said to be guilty.
Although Atticus did not succeed in proving that Tom Robinson was innocent, it was very important to the story as a whole. During the Tom Robinson case, we saw how hard Atticus was willing to fight against what he believed was wrong, no matter how hard it was to do so.
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