Jonathan Gottschall's Why Fiction Is Good For You

Articles have shown that a majority of people spend most of their time reading fiction. In the article “Why Fiction is Good for You,”written by Jonathan Gottschall, it expresses several reasons as to how fiction influences an individual through multiple perspectives. Some of the reasons that are listed in the article are mentioned in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In this novel, Lee uses characters to demonstrate to readers how to be warm hearted and to show sympathy, as well as to have the capability to understand others.

Gottschall indicates that through reading fiction, the reader becomes warm hearted and more sympathetic toward the characters who are suffering from bad conditions. In To Kill a Mockingbird, this idea applies to Mrs.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, this belief is expressed in Atticus’s advice and Scout applying the advice to the real world. When Scout does not understand Miss Caroline’s ways of thinking, 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” (39). Atticus expresses empathy toward Miss Caroline, and he teaches Scout to examine situations from different perspectives. Learning and understanding situations through different people’s perspectives, readers are able to recognize why people act in a particular way, and readers can respond to people’s actions due to their understanding of that individual. In the end, when Scout sees Boo Radley and walks him home, she applies Atticus’s advice. After Boo Radley has walked into his house, Scout looks at the town and she sees “street lights winked down the street all the way to town. [She] had never seen [her] neighborhood from this angle” (373). At this point in the story, Scout has grown up and she has the ability to understand different people. By standing on Radley’s porch, she sees the town in a completely different way. She knows how Boo Radley views the town, and why he decides to stay in the house all the time. It contrasts from Scout’s view of the town, and Scout is able to see that difference. When Scout uses Atticus’s advice, readers can learn from the characters to develop a better relationship with other people. Atticus’s advice and Scout sitting on the Radley’s porch teach readers that it is necessary to take into account other perspectives in order to have a better understanding on