To Kill a Fear

Tonic Pop

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was an instant success and has gone on to sell over 40 million copies and has been translated into 40 languages. It is a classic of modern American literature and won the Pulitzer Prize.

It is written from the perspective of a child, Jean-Louise Finch, nickname: Scout. Scout narrates her story as an adult looking back on her existence in Depression-era South from ages 6-9 and the view she had at that time and place of race and justice.

On a personal note, this is one of my favourite novels and I even convinced my wife to give our youngest daughter the middle name Scout. I almost got her to agree to it as a first name but the fact that her brother had a dog named Scout threw a spanner in those works.

One of the great things about To Kill a Mockingbird is it’s cast of beautifully ugly, fascinating characters. Mrs. Dubose is one of them. She's a disturbingly sour old lady. She sits on her front porch and viciously hurls abuse at Scout and her brother Jem any time they walk past her house.

The natural tendency for many of us – at least I might say that mine might be – to throw some spite bombs back at her – let them land in her shawl covered lap where it is rumoured that she hides a confederate pistol. Watch her explode.

Atticus the hero of our story, has been blessed with empathy and patience. Coupled with the wisdom of experience and inside knowledge, rather than ripping into Mrs. Dubose, (which with his intellect and lawyerly rhetoric he could do with ease,) He instead would, as he passed her house each day, he respectfully takes off his hat and wishes her a courteous and joyful “good afternoon”.

This is what incites Scout to proclaim that “It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”

To Scout’s mind, her Dad was like a knight taking a birthday cake to a dragon and inviting it to blow out the candles.

She saw his ability to remain charming and controlled as powerful. She was right.

Atticus had his own idea about what he saw as bravery.

He knew that Mrs. Dubose was ultimately harmless but that her personality had been afflicted in the final steps of her life’s journey by intense pain. He never excused her abuse but he was able to provide context and give his children and opportunity to learn empathy.

Dubose was addicted to morphine and she had vowed to quit and become clean before she died.

After she passed away Atticus explained that she had been battling a terminal illness that caused her extreme agony. She had been taking morphine to ease the pain but realised that she had become dependent and so by her own volition had stopped taking the painkiller. She knew that the disease would get her in the end morphine or not but she wanted to die a woman free of her addiction. With this knowledge the children were able to understand that her willingness to compound the pains of her illness with the pains of withdrawal in exchange for a short moment of freedom, was indeed a courageous decision.

"Real courage, explains Atticus, is when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin any-way and you see it through no matter what."

The Atticus lesson came at a time when his son Jem, who was almost a young adult, was beginning to face the social definitions, stereotypes and conventional teachings of what it means to be a man. A definition that tells us that courage has its own spotlight.

In the sageness of Atticus, courage is a decision. It is a decision to enable moral courage. In many cases it is a decision to do something that may have negative effect on the enactors life but they do it believing that what they are doing is the right thing to do.

With that said, the list of positives far out-weigh the negatives because with each courageous decision we make, we are resigning from what we are and stepping towards what we can become. I believe that with every moment of courage, a person’s mind expands and becomes more capacious; a person’s posture improves, stature increases, confidence grows and the spirit rises to new planes, in a state of liberation.

Thank you for listening.

Nate Hamon

Intro and Outro Music: Lioness by Mayan Fox