Law Through Literature

What does it really mean to be just? Is it following the law, or is it something deeper—like listening to that quiet voice inside that tells you what’s right, even when it’s hard? I first read TKAM when I was ten or eleven. Sitting on the floor with Scout and Atticus, I remember being completely absorbed in the trial, the town, and the impossible choices everyone had to make. Harper Lee had a way of showing fairness, courage, and amorality that stuck with me long after I closed the book.

Hi, I’m Lalie, and welcome to the first episode of Dear Literature, a podcast where I explore everything humanities. 

Today, we’re talking about justice—through literature, through the lens of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, and through one of my favorite childhood books, TKAM. Let’s dive in and see what these stories and ideas can teach us about doing what’s right.

When I think back to reading TKAM as a kid, what stuck with me most wasn’t the setting or even the plot, it was the trial.

For anyone who hasn’t read it in a while, or at all, TKAM follows Scout Finch, a young girl growing up in the 1930’s South as her father, Atticus Finch, defends a man named Tom Robinson who’s been falsely accused of assault. The case exposes the deep racial injustice woven into Maycomb, their small Alabama town and forces Scout, and us, to confront what fairness and morality really mean when the law itself is unjust. 

Re-reading it now, I notice how Harper Lee doesn’t just tell a story about a trial. She uses the courtroom as a lens to explore bigger questions: What is justice? What does it mean to act morally in an unfair society? And what responsibility do we have to stand up for what’s right, even when everyone else doesn’t?

When I think about justice, I think about Atticus Finch.

He’s the ideal of quiet integrity, of doing the right thing not because it’s rewarded but because it’s right. And yet, the more I’ve revisited the book, the more complicated that ideal feels.

Atticus isn’t fighting to win—he knows he’ll lose—but fights anyway. There’s something Aristotelian in that; Aristotle says justice is a virtue that exists between extremes, a habit of giving each their due. It’s not about feeling righteous; it’s about acting rightly.

But Plato might disagree. In The Republic, justice isn’t about individuals doing what feels moral—it’s about harmony in the whole. Every part of society fulfills its role. And in that sense, Maycomb is… almost a tragic mirror of Plato’s idea. Everyone is fulfilling their “role”—the men, the women, the children, the townspeople—but the harmony is rotten. It’s a system that protects injustice under the guise of order.

So where does that leave Atticus?

He’s trying to be both the moral individual and the social citizen and it’s tearing him apart. He upholds the law, but the law itself is flawed. He believes in fairness, but fairness doesn’t stand a chance in a world built on prejudice.

I think that’s why Scout’s perspective matters so much. She doesn’t yet understand compromise or consequence. She only sees what’s unfair. Her sense of justice isn’t philosophical—it’s instinctive, and childlike. When she stands on Boo Radley’s porch at the end, it’s like she’s seeing the town, and the law, for what it really is: a structure that can protect, or destroy, depending on who’s standing inside it.

And maybe that’s the point Harper Lee was making. Justice isn’t something that can be fully codified. Laws can tell us what’s legal, but not what’s right. That’s something we have to feel, like Scout does, like Atticus tries to. Plato’s apology called it the “examined life” the constant questioning of ourselves and the systems we live in.

So maybe the real courage in To Kill a Mockingbird isn’t the courtroom scene, or even Atticus standing up against the mob. Maybe it’s the quiet act of not accepting the world as it is.
Because justice, in the end, isn’t a verdict. It’s a practice.

That’s all for this episode of Dear Literature. Happy reading!