ding to Atticus, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” How is empathy toward others demonstrated or learned by characters?
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” – Atticus Finch.
In Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’; there are 3 main characters that show or learn empathy in many different situations and demonstrations of character; Atticus Finch, Scout Finch, and Boo Radley. No human is perfect, and Lee exhibits this beautifully through her characters. Lee illustrates her story in a town that seems to have been robbed of any compassion
…show more content…
Atticus knows that to be the decent man in a town of indecent people, he must show commiseration and respect to everyone regardless of who they are, where they come from, or what they look like. The main messages that Atticus as a character sends to the reader are messages telling the reader that indifference can destroy relationships, bonds, communities, and promote the generally wrong heterogeneous philosophies (especially in the fictional town of Maycomb) society has cultivated. Atticus “does his (my) best” to “love everybody” throughout the book and demonstrates this when he defends Tom Robinson, even when everyone thought the contrary of him. Atticus is a people-pleaser, but knows the boundaries and when to stand his ground or back down. This trait of Atticus’s consociates with the theme of empathy shown by a ‘handful’ of characters in the book. Empathy is one of the main themes in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and Atticus being a main character undeniably sends out that message telling the reader that there should be compassion and empathy in everything you do in order to be a respected, liked, and genuine …show more content…
Scouts ipseity and simple, open mind allows her to observe the people around her in an honest way, an opinion not clouded by judgement of appearance, stereotypes, or her peer’s social standards. Her incontrovertible opinion on how ‘there are only one type of folks’ and that there are just ‘folks’ shows the reader that she sees the simple truth bad or good in everything; unlike the abstruse, decorated ‘truth’ that some characters in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ fool themselves to believe. Scout knows empathy, and treats people like they are just plain people, better than any adult in Maycomb (not including Atticus Finch). Atticus and Scout are similar in the way they act towards others. Empathy is a key aspect of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ but it can be lost in translation when the readers see Scout’s subliminal acquiescence and acceptance to the racist judgement the characters in the book. As scout is still a child and is still learning she processes things differently to how other characters would in the story, dwells on events and situations and asks herself what they