Examples Of Compassion In To Kill A Mockingbird

TKM Essay

“Oh, Great Spirit, keep me from judging another man until I’ve walked in his moccasins.”-Jane Elliot. Jane Elliot was a third grade teacher who experimented on her class by separating them into brown eyes and blue eyes and then telling them one group was better than the other. The better eye colored group was discriminating, prejudiced, and judgemental against the opposite eye color. After observing the vicious outcome, Jane Elliot came to the conclusion that you have to use compassion to understand what people are going through. During the 1930’s, whites were still being prejudice against others, and blacks were still getting segregated and discriminated against. For example, in To Kill a Mockingbird the blacks live much farther

Scout lives in Maycomb County where she has to discover the unfair realities of society alongside prejudice people and some honest, accepting, and compassionate people. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer who teaches her life lessons to help her understand different perspectives. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how people’s ignorance results in prejudice against others and can only be stopped through understanding and compassion.

Lee exemplifies the ignorant people in a society and their effect on others using the people in Maycomb County. At the light pole on the corner, Dill asks Jem what Boo Radley looks like, and Jem responds with the rumors that have been formed over the years. The narrator says, “Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that 's why his hands were bloodstained - if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time” (Lee 13). The

While in Miss Maudie’s yard, Scout asks Miss Maudie why she is spraying a blade of nut grass with poison rather than just pulling it up. Miss Maudie replies, “‘Why one sprig of nut grass can ruin a whole yard. Look here. When it comes fall this dries up and the wind blows it all over Maycomb County!’” (Lee 42). The nut grass symbolizes gossip and rumors because they both spread throughout the town quickly and negatively. Rumors about Atticus, Tom Robinson, and the court case spread around town quickly and negatively, just like the nut grass. Maycomb consists of prejudice people who spread false rumors as quick as the nut grass, such as Francis Finch. While on the back steps of Aunt Alexandra’s backyard, Francis, Aunt Alexandra’s grandson, tells Scout that Atticus is a bad role model, and that he is ruining the family. “‘If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that’s his own business, like Grandma says, so it ain’t your fault. I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family-’” (Lee 83). This quote is ironic because Atticus is one of the best parents in Maycomb, yet his own family thinks otherwise. Atticus relates to Dolphus Raymond in which they are both good people, but people think of them as the opposite of good people. Today, it is normal in our humanity for people to be