How Is Empathy Shown In To Kill A Mockingbird

Empathy is one of the greatest powers that a human being can ever hope to achieve; one person being able to understand the inner-workings of another is something truly amazing. However, empathy isn’t something that one is always naturally able to accomplish; in fact, it usually takes a long time for one to develop any empathy at all. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the reader follows Scout Finch as she experiences her youth in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. In this story, we experience her empathy for others as it increases or decreases. Though there are many examples of these alterations in Scout’s relationships, there is one that is both prominent and more complex than a few others; her relationship with her aunt, Alexandra. There are three specific instances in which we can track the progression of Scout’s empathy towards her aunt; meeting Aunt Alexandra, Scout wanting to invite Walter Cunningham over, and the assault by Bob Ewell of Scout and Jem.
The readers are introduced to Aunt Alexandra at the Finch’s family Christmas, but Scout has most likely known her beyond what the readers see. So, because of this,

Scout’s empathy, or lack thereof, for Aunt Alexandra already exists and is expressed through the way she thinks and act towards her. “...Aunt Alexandra would have been analogous to Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and there” (Lee, 103). In the paragraph surrounding this quotation, Scout talks about how she believed that her Aunt Alexandra must have been swapped at birth with a Crawford in reference to Stephanie Crawford, the ditsy gossip of Maycomb. Through this, we see that Scout sees Alexandra as someone who thinks themselves to be above others and therefore cannot comprehend what might be happening inside the woman’s head.
Scout has seen her her aunt as being stuck up on more than one occasion. This comes up again a bit later in the story. At this point, Aunt Alexandra has moved in with Scout, her brother Jem, and her father, Atticus. Scout innocently makes a comment about wanting to have a boy named Walter Cunningham over to have dinner and to play. Walter Cunningham, though he is poor, is a nice boy, but Aunt Alexandra is against the idea for one reason:
“‘Because–he–is–trash, that’s why you can’t play with him’” (Lee 301).
Scout argues that the Cunninghams are friends of the Finches, and though she agrees, Aunt Alexandra still pushes the idea that they are useless and should have little to no interaction with garbage like the Cunninghams. Scout, because of this, finds herself confused with her aunt and is unable to empathize with her. She doesn’t understand what it means to think that someone is friendly, but also believe them to be completely useless to society. And here, she still does not understand her aunt.
Alas, Scout is not always blind to the clockwork of her aunt’s mind.

There is a final instance in which the readers see how Scout sees her aunt. Towards the end of the book, a terrible, immoral man named Bob Ewell attacks Scout and her brother in an attempt at homicide. “Aunt Alexandra went to the door, but she stopped and turned. ‘Atticus, I had a feeling about this tonight-I-this is my fault’” (Lee 359). Aunt Alexandra feels guilty for the assault, she sees herself at fault for the suffering of Jem and Scout. It is at this point in the story, a lightbulb finally brightens inside the head of a little girl; she is finally able to empathize with what her aunt has been doing throughout the entirety of the story. Aunt Alexandra has been trying to do what is best for Scout and Jem. She feels responsible for them. She’s been trying to mother

them.
Theodore Roosevelt once said that “no one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”, and this rings true with Alexandra. Scout never truly understands her aunt’s intentions, never really empathizes with her until the very end of the book. Harper Lee writes it so that Scout has very little understanding of her aunt’s seemingly contradictory logic until she sees what is right in front of her; her aunt has been trying to protect and nourish her. Though her ways might be a bit twisted, her intentions are the same. Empathy is what allows us to see perspective, and what allows stories to be written. A reader must be able to understand a character, even if it takes a while for the characters to understand each other.