Possessing empathy for others is a part of growing up, but many people struggle to learn the skill. Empathy is one of the themes of the book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Harper Lee weaves the theme of empathy through its many characters. 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. Empathy is learned through each character passing it on to each other as if it were a tradition. To begin with, in their small town, news from the outside doesn't travel fast, but whenever an outsider comes, the whole town seems to border up in solitude. Their southern hospitality suddenly disappears into thin air. It's not just the adults, it's the children too. The narrator and one of the main protagonists, Scout (Jean Louise Finch), thinks her new first grade teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, is nice when she first meets her. However, when her high expectations upset Miss Caroline, Scout gets into trouble. Then she refuses to go back to school. Atticus teaches Scout that her expectations were too high for an outsider, and that she should consider herself in her teacher's shoes. Scout learns empathy from her father, Atticus, when she tries to convince him to let her skip school because her first grade teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, scolded her. Atticus promptly tells her that she can get along with her teacher, as long as she considers her point of view, instead of her own all the time, "...if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. 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" (33). Scout goes on, explaining that Atticus told her, "She (Miss Caroline) had learned not to hand something to a Cunningham, for one thing, but if Wa