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Ethical Dilemmas In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

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What are the major ethical dilemmas (laws of life) of To Kill a Mockingbird? How do different characters resolve these dilemmas? Ethical dilemmas are what wound Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, (1960) together. Alongside morals, ethical issues play a huge role in character development and they add to the plot and storyline. Through numerous characters we see different morals and ethics that they follow and believe are right. Many people in the story are faced with ethical problems which make them question their morals and the morals of those around them. Maycomb County (the county in which To Kill a Mockingbird is set) is populated with many racial and gender opinionated people, thus it makes it hard for the population of the town to …show more content…

A place that is quite small and quaint but is home to very large personalities and many people who believe that their ethics and morals are the right ones. Atticus Finch is a character which stands out to most readers, he is an idealistic human he presents to us everything we as humans wish we could do. By showing us that we should tolerate people and show them respect but still make sure we keep our integrity. He does this while facing many of his own ethical dilemmas, such as the case he takes on in part 2 of the book. Tom Robinson’s case is a massive part of the story, Tom Robinson a black man living in a heavily white biased Maycomb County, is charged with allegedly raping Mayella Ewell. Being a lawyer Atticus was taught to, fight for people and to bring justice to the town and to make sure that the right person was convicted. However this proves to be a difficult case for Atticus and he is unsure whether to even take it on at first. He is fully aware that the town which he calls home is mainly populated with whites and at that time a black man’s word meant nothing compared to a white man’s word. “It couldn’t be worse, Jack. The only thing we’ve got is a black man’s word against the

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