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Justice in To Kill a Mockingbird

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The world is composed of many different kinds of people. Most of the time, we interact with fair people, other times we socialize with unfair ones. Without a doubt, I am sure we all want to come in contact with the good people more than we do the bad ones. All people do not act the same way in different situations. For example, when I was in school one day I placed my phone down on a desk and walked away to talk to my teacher at her desk. Shortly thereafter, when I went back to my seat, my brand new iPhone was not there. I asked my friends if they saw who took it, and nobody answered. Obviously, someone was not being honest. Then, after many minutes of searching somebody finally informed me that my phone was in the front office. Someone thought it was left there from the class before and brought it there to report it missing. My friends did not treat me fairly because they did not tell me somebody took my phone. However, the person who did tell me treated me in a fair and honest way. This is how I always want to be treated in my life. It makes me very pleased when someone treats me in a fair and just way. One could say that this friend was socially just. The term social justice means people treating others in a fair, just, honest, moral, truthful, and impartial way. Life and literature are similar. In literature authors create characters and situations to mimic real life people and situations. Authors do this so readers can connect to the characters and events in the story. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the theme of social justice appears in the characters Atticus Finch, Jean Louise Scout Finch, and Jeremy Atticus Jem Finch. Not everybody in the world can be just or moral all of the time, however, Atticus Finch is such a character. The first example of Atticus acting with social justice is when he does Mr. Walter Cunningham a legal favor. Walter is a poor white folk, but a hardworking farmer with little money. He has a legal problem to deal with, so he goes to Atticus. Walter has an entailment with him, but he cannot pay him with money. Atticus lets Mr. Cunningham pay him back for his legal work with food, crops, and wood. At a meeting with Atticus, Mr. Cunningham confesses, I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay you. Let that be the least of your worries, Walter Atticus replies (27). Clearly, this shows that Atticus is a fair, moral, and honest person who does good deeds. Let us now consider another occasion when Atticus is acting justly. Atticus is not a prejudiced person and to prove this, he takes the Tom Robinson case. Tom Robinson is a black man who is accused of raping young Mayella Ewell, a white woman. Judge Taylor assigns the case to him because he knows Atticus is not racially prejudice. When Jean Louise, Atticus daughter is talking to him at the house about the case Atticus says, I'm simply defending a Negro. Im defending him for a number of reasons. The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold my head up in town, I couldn't repres

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