...The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is narrated by a little tomboy girl named Scout. The setting of the book is in the early 1930’s in southern Alabama. During these times, the Great Depression is going on and so is a lot of discrimination; especially against Negroes. Even though there is a lot of discrimination during this time, there is a lot of characters in the book who demonstrate and learn the necessity of empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy shows up in the book several times; it is one of the main themes. Harper Lee shows empathy through her character. Atticus shows empathy to Mayella, Jeremy (Jem) to Arthur (Boo) Radley, and Scout to Boo. First, empathy is demonstrated when Atticus lets Bob Ewell threaten to kill him and lets Bob spit in his face. Despite having this happen to Atticus, he does not get angry or fight back. Instead,...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird indeed has many different themes that one can interpret from the extraordinary storytelling written by Harper Lee, but there is one that sticks out in particular. One of many themes that can be portrayed is that of empathy and perspective. Empathy is an act of kindness that can be seen in practically everyone, there is no one who is so emotionally jaded that they have never felt for another and felt empathy towards them. In the story of To Kill a Mockingbird, you can go from feeling your heart warming up from the sweet and kind spirit of Scout, to the heart wrenching feeling when held witness to the sickening inhumane acts played out by many of the adults in Maycomb County. Throughout the story, numerous times you see acts of kindness, from both the children and adults, but all the meanwhile...
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...The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird both have many similarities in how prejudice and empathy were displayed throughout the story. Both of the stories were set in the time of segregation in the Southern United States. It also shows the similarity of African-Americans as caretakers or housekeepers – Calpurnia in To Kill a Mockingbird and Aibileen is only one of the examples in The Help. The settings were also similar, a part of a town was where whites lived and part of a town was where African-Americans lived, but there was a twenty-year difference of when the books took place. Prejudice was mainly shown throughout the storied by the way whites treated the African-Americans. In The Help, there were multiple examples of prejudice: African-Americans were not allowed to us the same bathroom as whites and how African-Americans could not use the same plates as whites. The acts of prejudice often stemmed from the fact that whites believed that African-Americans contained diseases, a statement that was supported by no facts. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the main example of prejudice was when Tom Robinson was convicted of raping a white girl when...
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...Empathy is how a person feels and expresses their feelings about something. There are several displays of empathy throughout the book To Kill A Mockingbird that show the reader true insight into what the characters feel. Several articles in the StudySync series do a great job of showing the reader examples of empathy by giving the reader insight on people’s lives who were discriminated against or couldn’t use their voice. However, To Kill A Mockingbird does a better job of displaying empathy for those that cannot speak up for themselves by using characters like Mayella Ewell and Boo Radley as examples for Scout to express her empathy. They allow her to show empathy because they are people that she interacts with and she understands that with all of the trouble in their lives, they are not able to use their voice and speak for themselves when they need to. This is how the book connects to a reader on a deeper level than the poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson. Both To Kill A Mockingbird and Studysync focus on empathy. Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, develops Scouts empathy by making her understand other people’s lives and their troubles, which makes her more sympathetic towards...
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...To Kill A Mockingbird Essay What is Empathy? Empathy is the ability to step into another person’s shoes and understand what they did, or why they choose to do something. Not everybody can have empathy, only people who are willing to open their minds to different opinions and see what they might not have seen before. While showing empathy you can change a person's life for the better. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee reveals that showing empathy can give hope to someone in despair. Empathy can simply mean making somebody’s day or it can have a deeper meaning like trying to save somebody's life. In the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, there are a lot of examples of empathy simply just making somebody’s day. For example, “Jem suddenly grinned at him. ‘Come on home to dinner with us, Walter,’ he said. ‘We’d be glad to have you’” (Lee 23). Here, Jem knows that Walter doesn’t get the three meals a day. So Jem, being the way he was brought up by Atticus, politely asks Walter if he would like to enjoy a meal with the Finches. Another example of empathy making somebody’s day would be when Dolphus...
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...In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus and Tom Robinson show empathy. Empathy is when a person himself/herself into someone's shoes or in another term, looking at the other person's perspective. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus shows empathy in Bob Ewell. At one point in chapter 23, Scout and Jem received the news that Bob Ewell spitted on Atticus's Face and also threatened him. Later when Atticus comes home, Scout asked Atticus why he didn’t do anything to Bob Ewell even though he spitted in his face, he responded with a quote, "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 household of children out there" ( Lee, 218 ). This Shows that...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird Essay The story To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in Maycomb Alabama in the 1930’s. The Great Depression was in effect so not a lot of people had any money. However, this was not the only thing they had to worry about. There was a lot of Racism, class prejudice, and sexism that all lead up to not only the kids, but also adults facing the destruction of innocence. One example, is the mockingbird. This represented innocence because Atticus stated it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. Mockingbirds never do anything but sing beautiful music for us to listen to. They are peaceful animals that don’t hurt you. Innocence was taken away from Tom Robinson. He was accused for raping a white girl Mayella because he was black. Tom was innocent until they made him guilty. He tried to help her but it backfired. She told him to come inside and tried to have sex with him but her dad came in and Mayella blamed Tom. This was taken to trial and Tom was announced guilty because of destruction of innocence. Another example, is Boo Radley. Just like Tom the town made him seem like the bad guy from rumors and town gossip. Boo was locked inside his house most of his life and everyone thought he was scary and shouldn’t trust him. In reality he...
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...endured since the beginning of written history. Wherever or whenever someone differs from the norm too much, people have a tendency to move in like a pack of hyenas. What is it that causes people to act this way? Is it insecurity? Is it fear? Whatever prejudice is at its core, it makes people lose control. They give up individual thought to be part of the group. Maybe they feel safer. But there is one thing that causes this mob mentality to fall apart: empathy. If someone puts themselves in another person’s shoes, looks through their eyes,...
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...The benefit of reading is to learn from the character in the book.This is shown in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, “Reading and literature makes us smarter and nicer” by Annie Murphy Paul and Shami Sivasubramanian 2016 article, “Study Finds Reading Fiction Develops Empathy”. Harper Lee teaches us about prejudice, family and fear, through the eyes of the characters in the book. Firstly Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to a land of prejudice known as 1930’s Alabama. This teaches us how bad prejudice was back then and how much it has improved. “He despises Negroes, wont have one near him” is an example of prejudice. Atticus tells us that “there’s something in our world that make men lose their heads, they couldn’t be fair...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird Empathy Literary Analysis “Human morality is unthinkable without empathy” (Frans de Wall). In Harper Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird, the main theme is empathy, and it is exemplified through the different character’s actions and thoughts. Harper Lee believes that many of the characters express this trait which include Atticus, Jem, and Scout. This is clearly shown by the events that take place in the book. Atticus is the character that introduces the theme of empathy to Scout and Jem. He has a very famous line of dialogue that exemplifies 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 in it” (39). Another event that shows empathy is when Atticus takes the case for Tom Robinson, because he knows that it is not right to condemn an innocent man on the sole intent of racism (99). The statement Atticus makes and the defense of Tom robinson shows the empathy he has toward other people and how he teaches that to his children. Jem is another character that has begun to show empathy throughout the book whilst growing up. During the trial Jem is seen crying and muttering that the verdict of the jury is not right toward Tom...
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...and Jem from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsb by Scott Fitzgerald. Each of these characters encounters different processes of coming of age. When these characters process of maturation and coming of age are compared, the most relevant coming of age best exhibited by Holden from The Catcher in the Rye, following with Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird and Mr. Gatsby from The Great Gatsby; however, differences in coming of age are apparent in the different time periods of each novel setting, practicality, and present social issues. Holden Caulfield, the main character in The Catcher in the...
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...“To Kill a Mocking Bird”: Teaching Tolerance Through Empathy Mary Ellyn Fogarty December 8, 2012 America in the mid 1950’s and 1960’s was undergoing a profound social metamorphosis. Events such as, in 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, with the Supreme Court ruling public school segregation illegal, which many believe sparked the civil rights era, in 1956 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, “precipitating the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr.” (To Kill a Mockingbird: Civil Rights Era, 2012), in 1957 federal troops were sent to Little rock Arkansas to protect nine African American students who were going white high school, per the court ordered desegregation of school, were challenging and for some forcing the way in which Americans lived, their beliefs and their treatment of African Americans that had been indoctrinated into their consciousness from the time they were born and many did not understand why this treatment was inappropriate, prejudice and unconstitutional. For some these changes were viewed as not an intrusion or criticism of their way of life but as...
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...According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the definition of empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings of another without having the experiences fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Empathy is conducted internally; it is a mindset. When empathy is combined with action, the power of our convictions can be used to effect change around us. Atticus Finch, in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, does this in excess. Atticus has so much empathy for others that it actually clouds his judgement. Excessive empathy leads Atticus to make excuses for other’s behaviors, and to justify their wrongdoings. Atticus also lacks confidence to stand up for what and who...
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...In essence, empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” During the course of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the recurring lesson of empathy is learned through the experiences of characters, good and bad alike. Most specifically, Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch embarks on a journey throughout the story in which she gains the ability to do just this. Living in the 1930’s town of Maycomb, she witnesses the harsh racism towards those of color, and experiences other strict societal norms that the time period entails, such as gender roles, which she doesn’t seem to abide by. As a risk-taking child, growing up under the influence of her older brother Jem, the two children attempt a fairly...
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...Society’s Impact On Growth And Understanding In her novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates how society shapes our understandings of others, but that this can be mitigated by strong role models. Scout Finch is strongly impacted by the “old traditions of the south” during her growth into womanhood and when she pushes against the stereotypes placed on her as a southerner and a young lady to find her gender identity. The beliefs of Atticus Finch and his involvement in the courtroom have had a big impact on Scout’s growth. Atticus’ beliefs were different than the beliefs of most people of Maycomb and he “bestowed a benevolent order on the Finch household by his example” which slowly shifted Scout’s views on their society’s division....
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