How Does Lee Show Empathy In To Kill A Mockingbird

In “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee a girl named Jean Louise Finch learns the truths of her town when her father, Atticus Finch, is appointed to defend a Black man. Jean Louise, nicknamed Scout, and her brother Jem make many friends and uncover the importance of many things through her father defending a Black man named Tom Robinson. One of these friends being Charles Baker Harris, nicknamed Dill, who is immensely infatuated with the town’s so-called lunatic, Boo Radley. Her brother and herself learn most of the important things from Atticus and Calpurnia, their caretaker. Everything else that they learn about is most likely from and situations they’ve found themselves in throughout the novel. She learns about the cruel, real world when

Dill learns empathy through constantly thinking about Boo Radley and what he’s like since he’s been trapped inside a house for more than 15 years. Jem displays his knowledge of empathy when Atticus and Aunt Alexandra fight again. He asks Scout not to antagonize Aunt Alexandra and explains himself by saying, “‘…he’s got a lot on his mind now, without us worrying him…It’s this Tom Robinson case that’s worryin’ him to death-’” (Pg. 156) Jem is clearly considering how Atticus is feeling with the trial right around the corner and realizes that it’s better if Scout doesn’t make Aunt Alexandra’s disapproval of Scout become Atticus’s problem. Dill displays knowledge of empathy, though it seems like it was unintentional. Scout asks Dill about why Boo Radley has never ran away from his home and Dill responds with, “‘Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere to run off to…’” (Pg. 163) This quote shows that Dill is thinking from Boo Radley’s point of view and Dill realizes that mostly everybody in Maycomb is afraid of Boo, so he can’t go anywhere else even if he wanted to. Jem and Dill learn about empathy through what’s going on in their lives and display it without really knowing that they

When she first learns of empathy, it’s through Atticus, and it’s because she got in trouble with Miss Caroline for trying to tell her that the Cunningham’s don’t take anything from anyone. Atticus says, “‘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.’” (Pg. 33) Atticus goes on to tell her that Miss Caroline couldn’t possibly have known that the Cunningham’s didn’t take anything from anyone and that her punishing Scout was an honest mistake. From that point forward Scout is being empathetic, whether she knows it or not. An example is when Scout is trying to talk to Mr. Cunningham and she turns to Atticus to explain that she was telling him entailments are bad. “‘Well Atticus, I was just sayin’ to Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it take a long time sometimes…that you’ll ride it out together…’” (Pg. 175) Despite that fact that Scout wasn’t speaking directly to Mr. Cunningham she was still being empathetic towards him. She must’ve assumed that Mr. Cunningham was worried about his entailment so she comforting him, even though she was speaking to Atticus. Scout learns about empathy and subconsciously starts being empathetic towards the people of