To Kill A Mockingbird Essays: Character Analysis

The Secrets of Understanding Through Compassion and Kindness
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen,” are the words of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, psychiatrist and author of On Death and Dying. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, several characters have been able to accomplish this beauty of understanding. The aspect of understanding in these people do not appear without experience. It only flourishes in a person’s heart through
Jem is one of these people. Unlike the majority of the people at Maycomb’s courthouse jury, Jem is able to differentiate between lies and the underlying truth. This causes innocent young Jem to question Atticus about why Tom Robinson is not a free man and Atticus replies, “If you had been on that jury, son, and eleven other boys alike you, Tom would have been a free man,” (Lee 222). Jem is able to see past Tom Robinson’s race like his father, Atticus because Tom is convicted unjustly. Despite the fact that the majority of Maycomb supports Bob Ewell when the evidence is clearly more favorable towards Tom Robinson, Jem believes that Tom Robinson is truly innocent. Jem does not confide in the racial prejudice of Maycomb. He is shaken emotionally so much at the conviction of Tom Robinson that he cries. Although Tom is innocent, it is his skin color that renders him guilty. Tom really would have been a free man if eleven other boys like Jem were on the jury. Likewise, Dill is able to see through Mr. Gilmer’s altruistic acts and also sees Tom Robinson as innocent. After everything is over at the Maycomb courthouse, Dill says, “ ‘It was just him I couldn't stand,’...‘That old Mr. Gilmer doin' him thataway, talking so hateful to [Tom]… It was the way he said it made me sick, plain sick...Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that,’ ” (Lee
Compassion creates a deep understanding of other people such as when Atticus tells Scout about a person’s true colors. “You never really understand a person… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” is what Atticus replies to Scout after she tells him about her misfortunes at school (Lee 30). He explains to her that she herself could see what a person’s true nature is. Scout’s views of a person should not be based on first impressions; she should, at least, attempt to view ideas in their perspective. Scout does not try to understand her teacher, Miss Caroline’s perspective. In other words, Scout immediately judges Miss Caroline but, she does not take into account that Miss Caroline does not know the traditions or people of Maycomb well enough to know that Walter Cunningham will not take the coin or that Burris Ewell would be so disrespectful to the point where she, herself, would be in tears. Atticus asks Scout to go to school tomorrow after telling her this and that she should give her teacher another chance, even though she disapproves of Scout’s behavior and ability to read at an early age. Since she is able to understand and take to heart her father’s advice, she is able to view the world through the eyes of a mysterious man named Boo Radley in her small town of Maycomb better. “One time [Atticus] said you never really know a man until you stand in his