Justice and empathy are important central ideas in the book To Kill a Mockingbird , and these central ideas appear a lot throughout the story. One example of justice in this book is in chapter 9 when Atticus explains that he is defending a black person in court. Atticus explains to Scout that if he does not defend this person, Tom Robinson, in court, he cannot tell Scout or Jem to do anything because it is simply immoral. He explained that he knew he wasn’t going to win, but it was just to do the case. “… You shouldn’t be defendin‘ him …. ‘For a number of reasons,’ said Atticus. ‘The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.'” Scout believes that everybody thinks that Atticus is not doing the right thing by defending Tom, but Atticus doesn’t think so because he is showing justice. He may be connecting what he says to Scout about putting yourself in another’s skin and walk around in it to feel how they feel, so he thinks that defending Tom is just.
     Another example of justice and empathy in the story is when Francis angers Scout by calling Atticus a name she doesn’t approve of. After a scene of fighting, Uncle Jack listens to Francis’s side of the brawl, making Scout have the fault of the fight (and saying bad words). Soon after, Scout tells Uncle Jack that he’s being unfair and tells him why. “’Well, in the first place you never stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it—you just lit right into me. When Jem an‘ I fuss Atticus doesn’t ever just listen to Jem’s side of it, he hears mine too…'” She thinks Uncle Jack was being unjust because he never stopped to listen to her side of the brawl. She is implying that by doing so, he could have been more just and could have had more empathy.