Does Atticus Make The Right Choices

Every day we go about our lives. We make choices, make decisions but do we ever really think about if the choice we make is the right thing to do? Atticus is the answer to what we should do. Atticus shows the importance of making the right choice no matter what. This is shown through the actions of Atticus both in and outside of the trial.

Atticus tries his best to teach and show others-specifically Scout and Jem-how to judge what is right and what is wrong. First, Atticus tells Scout a very valuable life lesson. This is said when Scout was complaining to Atticus about her day at school, he said to her, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 30). Atticus is telling scout that she cannot truly judge someone's actions until she sees things from their side. This is something that Scout only understands near the end of the novel, when she sits on Arthur Radley’s front porch and tries to see what he see when he sits there, and she imagines how Boo see the events in the novel and in doing so began to understand him.

After Jem and Scout were given Air rifles Atticus tells them, “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 93). Atticus is telling us to never harm an innocent being because they do nothing but benefit the world. So in Atticus’s eyes it’s such a horrible thing to harm innocence that it is tantamount to a sin, and a sin is something that should be avoided at all costs. Also, by extension if harming innocents is a sin, then doing right by them would be a great good