The kids learn to be more empathetic by learning first hand from people who are very good at being empathetic towards others. Ever since Scout and Jem first tried communicating with Boo, he had been giving them gifts. They took the gifts without ever repaying him and still had never talked to him. After Scout finally meets Boo, she thinks to herself, “Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad”(281). Boo was a very good person who was very empathetic towards the his …show more content…
This caused Scout to try and be more empathetic whenever she could towards others. It is a little bit like a form of the “foot-washing baptism”, because when something nice is done to her she begins to try and repay the favor by being kind towards others. After Atticus defended Tom Robinson in the trial, he caused the Ewells to be very angry at him and his family. Atticus almost had the charges against Tom dropped, which would have been very bad for the Ewells, but even though the charges weren’t dropped, the Ewells still lost a lot of reputation. Bob Ewell sees Atticus downtown one day and spits in his face. Atticus didn’t do anything back, which surprised his kids. He explains to them, "Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell's shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that's something I'll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I'd rather it be me than that houseful of children out there. You