To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee: Character Analysis

Imagine a wagon with wooden wheels, helping a family move across a valley. The wheels have to endure all of the bumps, rocks, mud, and water, yet a family will not move anywhere unless the wheels are on the wagon. This is similar to the idea of empathy that Harper Lee is trying to emphasize through Atticus. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, she keeps proving through Atticus that even though being truly empathetic toward someone less fortunate than you may bring them down in society, standing up for one another could also make a whole society respect one another. Atticus’s empathy toward Tom Robinson is a major cause of Maycomb County respecting one another by the end. When Atticus told Jem some advice about how killing a mockingbird is a sin, Scout was confused and asked Mrs. Maudie about it, who clarified to her, “‘Your father’s right,’ she said. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make us music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it is a sin to kill a mockingbird (119).’” Tom Robinson, like most Negroes, are like mockingbirds in Maycomb society. They are completely innocent, don’t do any harm or evil, yet other people kill their …show more content…
Dubose in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird teaches readers that no matter what brings them down, standing up for one another could make a whole society respect one another. Being truly empathetic often takes a lot of determination, patience, and courage. People like Atticus supported less fortunate people like Tom Robinson and Mrs. Dubose, during times they were treated harshly. However, no matter how many times their reputation was stabbed, they continued to endure their beliefs. Countless wars have been fought throughout the world because innumerable individuals continued to empathize others who are treated unfairly. Though, without these people, in what