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Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird takes place in rural south Alabama in a town called Maycomb during the Great Depression, in a time when many Southerners both accepted and expected discrimination toward minorities. Atticus Finch, a widowed father of two, trying to raise his children well, teaches them to see things from another’s perspective. Lee incorporates the crucial quality of empathy in the feelings of the characters and expresses the empathetic theme with the influence of racism and prejudice in Maycomb society within the main characters Scout, Jem, and Atticus.…
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In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch is the protagonist. She lives in a town called Maycomb. Scout is a young girl who has a brother nicknamed Jem, and a father named Atticus. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows Scout Finch as literate, curious, and violent.…
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set in an old Alabama town when racism was prevalent. I believe that Harper Lee illustrates numerous examples of empathy throughout her novel using Atticus and the kids. Atticus Finch, having a strong character and a sense of equality treats everyone equally, no matter the skin color. He emphasizes for everyone: Mrs. Dubose and even the Ewell’s. He teaches this to the kids, and they inherit the trait quickly. After all, if Atticus wasn’t equal to everyone, what would be the need to write a novel with no…
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However, Atticus showed empathy towards her and he made Jem read to Mrs. Dubose for a month. Atticus has empathy for Mrs. Dubose because he says,”She’s not suffering any more. She was sick for a long time. Son, didn’t you know what her fits were?…
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She was learning by observing her brother, father, and Dill that his trial was not equal to what it should be. Just because he was black he was being treated smaller and less important than what you should be treated in a case. Everyone should be treated equally. Scout learned compassion from this by feeling for Tom’s family. She got to see first hand that people were on his side fighting for him. “You all know of Brother Tom Robinson’s trouble. He has been a faithful member of First Purchase since he was a boy. The collection taken up today and for the next three Sundays will go to Helen-his wife, to help her out at home,” said Reverend Sykes (Lee 160) This right here is an example of Scout observing the compassion given by the church that Tom belongs too. They are spending the money they have to go toward the Robinson family helping with lawyers and whatever other problems they are dealing with in their current situation. “Alec, shut the doors. Nobody leaves here till we have ten dollars,” said Reverend Sykes (Lee 162) This is the part where people donated money, but not enough. They wanted to reach a goal of ten dollars to give to the family that day. This shows the compassion in really wanting to push forward and help this family. It shows Scout what people will do to help…
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The novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee has a naive view of life in the South of America in the 1930’s. The book is written through the eyes of Jem and Scout Finch. Scout is a young girl that is growing up around her father’s case. Her father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer who is defending a black man, Tom Robinson, who is fighting the charge of raping a white lady. The lives of the characters are changed from the effects of racism in the book To Kill a Mockingbird.…
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Empathy is a quality many people value in others; in Maycomb county, many people show this. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee one main theme is empathy. C.In Maycomb, Alabama, racism is prevalent throughout the town. However, many people, like Miss. Maudie and as young as Scout, show empathy that leads to a more equal society.…
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In the grand scheme of things, each of us is working hard to see ourselves prosper. When we are fighting for survival, why should any of us take the time to feel for our fellow human beings? In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee implies that having the ability to feel for others or to show empathy not only benefits others, but can lead to personal gains as well. This is best demonstrated through the characters of Atticus, Jem, and Scout Finch.…
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Throughout the book Scout had been shown to be an empathetic character. In chapter 4 Scout had come across gifts given by Boo Radely, evident when she says: “My first impulse was to get it [gum] into my mouth as quickly as possible, but I remembered where I was” (33). When Scout eats the gum it shows that she had trusted the gifts placed in the tree by Boo. As she realized the gifts were from Boo she found out that Boo was a lonely, isolated soul that wanted to interact with the children. This part of the book of the book shows us that Scout trusted Boo which is vital because trust and empathy go hand in hand as it is an effective platform for communication, in addition to that, we also learned that Scout’s trust lead to her understanding of what type of character Boo really is. Similarly, Scout had empathized with Boo in the end of the book when Scout was on Boo’s porch climbing into his skin. Which is evident when says: “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough” (279). This showed that Scout had finally understood how Boo felt of the children which in turn shows how empathetic Scout was being to Boo. All in all, Scout being empathetic to Author Radely shows that she trusts, understands how lonely he is and also understands that…
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The book To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Scout, Jem and Atticus are the main characters and Atticus is their father. Atticus who is a lawyer had to defend a black man for a crime that he did not commit. The white people in town believed that a black man, Tom Robinson, raped a white girl. At the trial, Scout and Jem are exposed to racism and stereotypes and in the end Tom Robinson is found guilty. In the book, Atticus says to Scout “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.”(Harper Lee,30).…
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In the beginning of the novel, Scout does not understand the concept of empathy, making her act inconsiderately towards her peers…
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The story takes place in a town called Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s. Despite the whites treating the African Americans like subordinates, the townsfolk treat each other like family, with the exception of the Ewell family. In the beginning of the book Harper Lee illustrates empathy is learned through each character passing it on to each other as if it were a tradition. In one of the scenes where Scout(Jean Louise Finch) our protagonist has a confrontation with her teacher Miss Caroline , Atticus gives her the most important advice. Atticus promptly tells scout can get better along if she can view though Miss Caroline point of view: “‘first of all, if you can learn a simple trick, scout, you’ll get along alot better with all kinds of folks.…
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“If we’re going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand and know empathy”(Brown). As humans we have the ability to get to know someone well but we can also completely ignore the fact they even exist or we can label them based off physical appearance and past actions. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how two children learn from people and their actions to respect everyone no matter what they have been docked or labeled as. Our society has created a brick wall of expectations that mask who we all are on the “inside”. This causes the need for someone to “break the wall” or us as an individual to “break free”. Throughout the novel, Harper Lee fully shows the central theme that…
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Learning lessons is a very important part of growing up. Children learn new things every day of their life. Even adults learn something every once in a while. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the character Scout is very adventurous and loves to learn; she has many experiences that lead to her being taught many different things about life. On page 12 of Cliff Notes for this novel, John Sova writes “each experience is designed to give Scout a further understanding about certain things in life and about people. In one way or another, every episode leads to some type of learning experience for Scout”. Scout learns a lot of different things about her town’s views, the people who she’s heard about but never really knew, and how to treat others the proper way.…
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“The witness of the state… have presented themselves to you… in cynical confidence that their testimonies won’t be doubted [because of]... the evil assumption - that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings.” (Lee 273). This was a line quoted from Atticus during Tom Robinson's court case in To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird took place in the early 1930’s in Maycomb County, Alabama, when many people were strongly prejudiced against blacks. Atticus said this line not only to save Tom Robinson, a black man, from the wrongful verdict of rape, but potentially even some of his town from the stifling grip of prejudice. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrated that prejudice causes lack of empathy and bias; this was shown through the words and reactions to conflicts of prejudiced characters.…
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