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To kill a mockingbird chapter 1-20 summary
Introduction of empathy 50 pages essay
Reflections on empathy
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Empathy is the feeling someone sorrow or able to imagine being them. People shouldn’t judge someone without walking in their shoes. People shouldn’t judge people because you never know what there going threw at that moment and time. Empathy is developed by understanding someone struggle just how in the book “To Kill A Mockingbird” I can feel empathy for mayella Ewell and Boo Radley because we went through similar experiences. Mayella Ewell never knew what love was or what it was to have friends.
Another well known lesson taught by Atticus is about empathy. Empathy is defined as: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This is shown in chapter three when Scout encountered some problems with her new, first grade teacher, Mrs. Caroline. The little girl was mature well beyond her years, therefore, when she was asked to read out loud, Scout read with near perfect fluency. However, the teacher was surprisingly displeased with her advanced level in literature and flow, and assuming it was Atticus who was educating his daughter, Mrs. Caroline wanted the ‘lessons’ to come to a stop.
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch teaches Scout, his daughter, about the importance of empathy. As much as there is a lack of empathy in To Kill a Mockingbird, there are some great characters that do show empathy. Jem is one of those characters. Jem is 10 years old, and the brother of Scout, and the son of Aitticus. An example of Jem’s empathy is when he refuses to leave the jail, when Atticus tells him to.
This novel also shows us people that are, and are not empathetic to things. It is the main example the children have to learn themselves. In the first few chapters, Scout, Dill and Jem are playing in front of the Radley house. This scenario is the first instance where empathy arises.
In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, examples of empathy are abundant and constitute much of the novel. Out of the many examples, three of them will be discussed. Empathetic practice is one of the first ideas Atticus explains to Scout in the novel. In the third chapter of the novel, Atticus states “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.” This point is reiterated on several occasions by Atticus.
The virtue from To Kill A Mockingbird I hold most dear is empathy. Empathy is looking at a situation through another person’s point of view. You begin to realize the places they’ve been, the things they’ve done and seen, leading to what makes them feel as they do. However, empathy is not telling a friend “I know how you feel” or “hey, at least it’s not…”
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. To me the word empathy in “To Kill A Mockingbird” means “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.” Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” suggests that empathy is a universal feeling, but everyone experiences it in different occasions and in different ways. Many people empathize through real life experiences. Scout is one of those people.
To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, is a coming-of-age story. This story is about the Finch family living in the unjust times of the 1930s in their hometown of Maycomb, Alabama. The main character Scout and her brother Jem are children who grow very much in the three years of their lives in this book. Atticus,the father of the Finch family is a lawyer that is different than everyone else in society and tries to view everyone. Because of Atticus’s morality he does something any other white lawyer wouldn’t do.
Scout and Jem develop empathy throughout "To Kill a Mockingbird" by experiencing different perspectives and events that broaden their understanding of the world and the people in it. In the mid-1950s, just before the peak of the American civil rights movement, Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird" to explore the consequences of hatred and prejudice in Maycomb County, Alabama, where racial and age boundaries prevented people from displaying empathy. Harper Lee explores the power of empathy in her Southern Gothic novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" through the narrator and protagonist Scout and her elder brother Jem. Scout is a young child who is still learning and developing an understanding of emotions and social cues.
It’s easy to be able to ignore somebody’s feelings, but it is difficult to step up and share the feelings of another. Empathy is the idea of doing just that and understanding one’s feelings. Harper Lee symbolizes empathy in many different ways throughout her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. In Lee’s novel, many characters are affected by the theme of empathy, but the characters that experience it the most are Jem when he tells Scout not to harm the insect, Scout when she shows affection for Mrs. Dubose, and Tom when he shows affection for Mayella even when she accuses him of rape. The person that it was hardest for was Tom Robinson judging that he is a negro man.
In Harper Lee’s Bildungsroman (or coming-of-age) novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), precocious six-year-old Jean Louise “Scout” Finch struggles to understand the perspective of others. She lives in a small town called Maycomb, Alabama with her brother, Jem, maid, Calpurnia, and father, Atticus during the Great Depression. It takes time for her to recognize why other friends and family act differently than her. This causes some hardships and arguments between others. Before learning about others, she sometimes (accidentally) makes the people around her feel alienated.
The realization of empathy helps her view her community as a more unified society. Moreover, Atticus advises Scout on the component of empathy, “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. until you climb into his skin and walk around it” (Lee 39). Atticus really emphasizes the importance of the key power of empathy to see the world from the perspective of others, it really fosters empathy as an important value to show compassion towards one another no matter another person's different background and experiences. Scout has really come to understand empathy and is displayed when talking about the different types of people in their community, “I think there’s just one kind of folks.
The Escalation of Force: Specifically Less-Lethal Alternatives “What gets us killed isn’t the ability to apply lethal force; it’s the reluctance to use it, and the reason we’re reluctant is that we can’t make informed decisions. The rules of engagement that allow us to use lethal force mean that we have to tolerate a lot more abuse and risk. With a non-lethal-weapon option, you don’t have to accept the conditions offered” (Wilkinson, 2008) Law enforcement officers are one of the most visible arms of government, as they are only members of society legally authorized to take life or inflict serious injury to preserve order and enforce the law and therefore, they are entrusted with substantial authority and discretion (Miller, 2010).
Through To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee teaches us the righteousness of empathy. Harper Lee 's technique of writing and coinciding Christian beliefs weaved through emphasizes the importance of the story 's moral and themes. It is through Scout, the young dynamic and protagonist, that Lee opens the reader 's eyes to a realistic world of prejudice and inequality during the 1930s. Though introducing many characters throughout the novel, it is through Lee 's wise father character, Atticus Finch, that she further helps teach her readers life lessons, one being empathy. While narrating in first person, Lee further details her novel with the setting and use of style and diction.
Scout is initially naïve and does not think about how her actions affect others, showing that children can be offensive when their naïveté equates to a lack of empathy. For example, when Jem invites Walter Cunningham over for dinner, Scout is not accustomed to the way he eats. She says to Calpurnia, “But he’s gone and drowned his dinner in syrup, he’s poured it all over” (Lee 32). Scout’s youth prevents her from understanding the differences in other people’s life circumstances, including Walter’s. Her family is wealthier than the Cunninghams and she knows proper manners; Walter, on the other hand, likely does not.