When she arrives she thinks that she is the head of the household and she also believes that Atticus shouldn't be taking on the trial. Generally Macomb is a society against Blacks. They don't like anyone "below" their class, and seeing that blacks are right at the bottom of their social ladder the rest of Maycomb are racist and prejudiced towards them. People are also prejudiced against Mr Dolpus Raymond as he is married to a black woman and they have mixed race children. Although he is very clever, everyone thinks that he is no good. I know this because he tells the children that he hates "the hell white people give coloured folks, without even stopping to think that they"re people, too." .
When Atticus takes on the trial he shows loyalty and commitment to Tom Robinson. He also shows bravery and courage, as Atticus knows that a lot of Maycomb citizens will be horrible to him. He realises that he won't win because he is defending a black person, but he is still going to try. I know this because he says .
"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win".
This means that there is no chance that he is going to win the case because of the way Maycomb thinks about black people, but he is still going to try his hardest to win. He also tells Scout that he had to take the trial .
"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 represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again.".
This means that if he didn't defend Tom Robinson he would be as racist as everyone else in Maycomb and he wouldn't be able to call himself a lawyer. Atticus also is worried that the citizens of Maycomb will be horrible to Scout and Jem as he doesn't know if the children would be able to cope with it all. He says that.
"I hope and I pray that I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness and most of all without catching Maycomb's usual disease- .
