In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and John Grisham's A Time to Kill, both protagonists behave equally courageously by taking on defense cases they know are doomed to failure due to racism.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus behaves courageously by undertaking the defense of Tom Robinson. He knows doing so is dangerous because he and his children will be subjected to ridicule due to the townspeople's racism. He also knows doing so is futile because, while no concrete evidence exists to legitimately convict Robinson, he also knows acquitting Robinson is dependent on a racist jury, as we see when he explains the following to his brother in Chapter 9:
It couldn't be worse, Jack. The only thing we've got is a black man's word against the Ewells'. The evidence boils down to you-did—I-didn't. The jury couldn't possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson's word against the Ewells'—. (Ch. 9)
Yet, despite the poor chances of success, Atticus persists in his defense of and protection of Robinson because he knows it is the morally right thing to do. Through his defense in the courtroom, he succeeds in discrediting the Ewells as reliable witnesses. Atticus's bravery in discrediting the Ewells, especially Bob Ewell, leads to consequences Atticus never foresaw: Bob Ewell attacks and nearly kills Atticus's children out of revenge.
Similarly, in Grisham's first novel A Time to Kill, attorney Jake Brigance defends African-American Carl Lee, who has been charged with capital murder. Unlike Robinson, Lee is actually guilty of his crime but not to the degree he is being charged with. Lee made a decision to pursue vigilante justice by murdering the white rapists of his 10-year-old daughter after other white men were released unpunished for a similar crime in a neighboring town. Both Lee and Brigance know that, due to racism, Lee was unlikely to witness his daughter's rapists receive full prosecution of the law. Knowing that blacks and whites never receive equal shares of justice or the full force of the law due to racism, Brigance agrees to defend Lee and pursue having him acquitted based on reasons of temporary insanity.
Similarly to Atticus, Brigance succeeds in bravely discrediting the prosecution's witnesses, particularly the psychiatrist, Dr. Rodeheaver, put on the stand to testify Lee was not insane. During Brigance's cross-examination, Brigance shows the court that Dr. Rodeheaver made the same false testimony of defendants in other criminal cases, even when other doctors contrarily asserted the defendants were insane. Unlike Atticus, Brigance succeeds in convincing the jury to acquit Lee based on reasons of temporary insanity.
Also, similarly to Atticus, Brigance's courage in pursuing justice in the face of racism puts the lives of himself and his family in danger, as he and his family immediately begin being terrorized by the Klu Klux Klan.
Hence, while the outcomes of the trials are different, we can see that both Atticus and Brigance acted very courageously by following their moral compasses to pursue legal justice, despite the tribulations they faced due to racism.
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