Empathy Examples In To Kill A Mockingbird

Empathy-the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy is showed in To Kill a Mockingbird many times. One example of empathy is shown when Mrs. Maudie is telling the kids not to bother Boo Radley. Another example of empathy is when Atticus is being really nice to Mrs. Dubose. A third example of empathy in the story is when Atticus defends Tom Robinson in the case. Empathy is great and everyone should be empathetic to someone.

First of all, Mrs. Maudie shows empathy for Boo Radley. One thing she did was tell the kids that he wasn’t dead and "Arthur Radley just stays in the house, that's all....Wouldn't you stay in the house if you didn't want to come out?"(Page 44) This is being nice because she is telling the kids that

Dubose. Mrs. Dubose was being really mean to Scout and Jem but even after all of that Atticus was being nice to her. "Don't you say hey to me, you ugly girl! You say good afternoon, Mrs. Dubose!"(Page 103) She also said to Jem “Don’t you lie to me!” she yelled. “Jeremy Finch, Maudie Atkinson told me you broke down her scuppernong arbor this morning. She’s going to tell your father and then you’ll wish you never saw the light of day! If you aren’t sent to the reform school before next week, my name’s not Dubose!”(Page 104) This is a complete lie that never happened and she is just trying to get Jem mad. Another quote that Mrs. Dubose says is “Your father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for!”(Page 105) and these are just some examples of her being mean and after that Atticus was still very nice to Mrs. Dubose. Atticus would take off his hat, wave to her and say, "Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look pretty as a picture this evening."(Page 103) The reason that he was being so nice was that Mrs. Dubose was addicted to painkillers, and she wanted quit before she died. She had Jem read to her so that she could have a distraction. Jem did not know any of this until later, but Atticus knew that he could explain it and Jem would

Atticus tried as hard as he could even when he already knew that he would lose. "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win."(Page 78) This means that just because he knew that he would lose is no reason to not at least try and even have a small chance to win the case. Atticus used a lot of time trying to win the case for him and thought of as much evidence as he could to defend Tom Robinson."She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards."(Page 207) He is saying that Mayella didn’t think that there would be a trial and that Tom would go to jail until after everything happened. This is just one of the very detailed pieces of evidence that probably took up a long time to think of. In conclusion there are many examples of empathy in To Kill a Mockingbird the first example is shown when Mrs. Maudie tells the kids not to bother Boo Radley, the second example is when Atticus is nice to Mrs. Dubose. The last example of empathy is when Atticus defends Tom in the case even knowing that he will lose. Overall empathy is great and everyone should be empathetic to