to Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Everyone in life is forced to make decisions. whether they have huge consequences or not is another question. the littlest things like if you decide not to eat breakfast it has consequences. if you don't eat breakfast you will probably be tired but if you do then you will be more awake and alert. but the choices can often have bigger consequences, ones that can affect your entire life and even end it. someone who made one of those decisions that affected his entire life was atticus finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. he decided to defend An African American in court for something he did not do in a very racist community. the decision he made had both negative and positive effects on his life.

one positive effect of Atticus defending tom robinson is that he is doing the right thing. he is giving the community a chance to change and slowly opening them up to not judging people on the color of their skin. if he hadn't defended tom the community wouldn't even have seen that the color of skin does not matter. when Atticus defended tom it showed them that there are other points of view besides theirs. what if it were them that got randomly prosecuted for something they clearly didn't do just for their skin color.

one of the negative effects of Atticus defending Tom Robinson was that the community was very mad at him but also surprised that he would defend an African american. they were used to nobody caring whether a black man got convicted of a crime he did not do. they judged him for defending an African american almost as much as they judge the african americans.

another negative effect of atticus choosing to defend Tom Robinson is that bob ewell then tried to kill his children. luckily boo Radley came in and helped them but if he hadn’t that would've been the ultimate consequence to his actions. he risked his entire life and the life of his family to defend tom. i think Atticus knew perfectly well what kind of person Bob ewell was and what he might do in reaction to his defending of tom, but sometimes you have to make the decision. is the possible outcome really worth what the consequences could be?

that is an example of someone in to kill a mockingbird who had to make a decision that had consequences. Atticus Finch made the difficult decision of defending Tom Robinson(an innocent black man) in a very racist community. he knew there would be consequences to his actions but sometime the cause just outweighs the consequences and you are stuck making a decision. i think he did the right thing by defending tom. i think in that situation the cause did outweigh the consequences.