How To Empathize In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Empathy is learned through the process of life, but some people never quite learn how to empathize. Harper Lee really makes empathy one of the many themes that make up To Kill a Mockingbird. Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others. Empathy becomes very important to the main characters so then they will not become ignorant like the rest of Maycomb county. In Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird she emphasizes the necessity of empathy with Scout learning why Boo Radley is always inside, Atticus thinking of Bob Ewell’s life, and Dill with Tom on the witness stand. Lee demonstrates how Scout begins to empathize with Arthur “Boo” Radley, and why he never leaves his house. In the beginning innocent Scout believes everything rumored …show more content…
Dill watches from the black section of the courtroom as Tom Robinson is verbally harassed by Mr. Gilmer. Dill begins to think of his life and how nobody in his family respects him and how they all see him as a lower class almost just as Tom is being treated by Mr. Gilmer during the trial. Mr. Gilmer sees Tom as lower and guilty just by the color of his skin and knowing that because he isn't white that Mr. gilmer is of higher social status and begins to treat Tom Robinson as trash. Seeing this Dill really gets hit hard and begins to cry while Tom was being talked to so hatefully by Mr. Gilmer and it makes him sick to his stomach to see such a wrongdoing. This is how Harper Lee demonstrated empathy through the characters Atticus, Scout, and Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird. It begins to show the importance of empathy that Lee wanted to establish in the novel. Lee really shows that we should not be ignorant people such as those of Maycomb, and do not judge before before looking at life from their shoes. Like Atticus Finch says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in
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