In Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the character Arthur “Boo” Radley is portrayed as misunderstood, brave, and later on caring. The purpose of the character Arthur “Boo” Radley shows us not to judge a book by its cover. This novel follows siblings Scout and Jem; along with their dad, Atticus Finch. They are a family that lives in Maycomb County. Atticus is a successful lawyer, therefore, he is always busing. Scout and Jem spend most of their summer spying on their neighbor Boo Radley. Boo was extremely misunderstood. In chapter one, we find out that the entire neighborhood is afraid of Radley and his family. Everyone has made up stories about The Radleys. According to their neighbor, Miss Stephanie Crawford, he stabbed his dad with some scissors. In multiple chapters, Scout mentions that people have said that Boo eats wild animals. In chapter four, they mention that he bit off his mother’s fingers because he could not find any cats or squirrels to eat. Due to these stories about Boo, people wanted to kill him. Boo also never left his house. Scout’s brother Jem thought that Boo never left his house because his dad had him chained to the bed. While talking about misunderstanding people, Atticus hints at Boo and Walter Ewell. He tells her, …show more content…
Throughout the novel, he monitors the children. One day while they were playing a game, Scout tire rolled right in front of the Radley house. While there she, heard laughter coming from inside the house. She thought it was Boo, but she kept it too herself. Later in the novel, it is revealed that the laughter was, in fact, Boo. He also risks his life to save Scout and Jem while they were being attacked by Bob Ewell. Ewell attacked the children while they were on their way to a Halloween pageant. Boo ends up killing Ewell in order to protect the children. This leading up into showing how he is also
Boo is a very important character in the book, in fact, the novel opens with Scout and her interactions with Boo and is closed by it too. Scout learns about Boo though the gossip passed on through neighbors in the community. The stories are scary and many out of context, however, Scout doesn’t seem to notice this till after the trial. At the beginning of the book she plays a game that involves Boo, and she tries to torment him into coming out. When Scout describes Boo Radley she says, "People said 'Boo' Radley went out at night and peeped in people’s windows. That he breathed on flowers and they froze instantly. They said he committed little crimes in the night but not one ever saw him." This shows that Scout sees Boo as an object of fascination instead of a human being. She does not acknowledge that he has emotions or feelings, she just views him as a monster who does horrible things to people. Furthermore, we can learn that Boo is not a very loved or respected figure in the community due to his strange way of living. As the trial takes place Scout matures and her level of complex thinking increases, but it is not until October 24th that we see how her perception of Boo changes since in the trial she saw how badly they treated Tom Robinson and she directly connected it to Boo “I hugged him and said, “Yes, sir. Mr. Tate was right, it’d be sort of
However, all the neighborhood legends about Boo were contradictory to what Boo’s true nature was. He rescued Scout and Jem from being murdered by Mr. Ewell, and in the brief time he was physically present in the book, he showed no signs of malice. He was almost brought into the spotlight because he was the one who stabbed Mr. Ewell in order to rescue the children, but that would hurt Boo because of his content life of solitude. “ To my way of thinkin’, Mr. Finch, taking the one man who’s done you and this town a great service an’ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight-to me, that’s a sin.” (Lee 369-370). Scout also observes on the same page when Atticus tells the cover story to save Boo, “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?”. Scout was right to say so because it is true that Boo would have suffered a great deal when he was the one who saved the lives of Jem and Scout. Boo Radley
Set in the town of Maycomb County, this novel describes the journey of two young kids growing up in a small-minded town, learning about the importance of innocence and the judgement that occurs within. The individuals of Maycomb are very similar, with the exception of Arthur “Boo” Radley, the town’s recluse. Boo Radley has never been seen outside, and as a result of this, the children in the town are frightened of him and make up rumors about the monstrous things he allegedly does. This leaves the individuals in the town curious as to if Boo Radley really is a “malevolent phantom” like everyone assumes that he is or if he is just misunderstood and harmless. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Boo Radley is a saviour. This is
The community has ostracized Boo Radley from the community even though most people don’t know him. “Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows.” (Lee 5). This is how the community saw Boo Radley in the beginning of the book (Lee). This outlook of Boo has made everyone scared to even walk past his family’s house (Lee). At the end of the book Boo helps Scout and Jem out from an attack from Bob Ewell when they were on their way back home (Lee). After that event they look at Boo differently till the end of the story. This type of discrimination happens in today’s society still and in movies everyone has seen such as the “Sandlot”.
When the Flinch children moved into Maycomb bad rumors were spread about the Radley house, and soon the children were terrified of this “ghostly” neighbor. Little to their knowledge Boo Radley was not a scary mean person like they thought. Boo taught both Jem and Scout that you should not judge people based on what rumors say. For example, in the beginning of the novel Scout and Jem find a knothole in a tree, but when they kept going to the tree there was always something new, like someone had been putting presents for them in their. “I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon when our knot-hole stopped us again. Something white was inside this time.” (page 79). Even though Boo knew that the kids were scared of him and that they believed the rumors he still put effort into making their day and giving them something. Another example was at the very end of the novel when Boo Radley saved Jem and Scouts life. At this moment Scout had a whole new respect for Boo because he wasn't what everyone said. He was better than that. “ A man was passing under it. The man was walking with the staccato steps of someone carrying a load too heavy for him. He was going around the corner. He was carrying jem. Jem’s arm was dangling crazily in front of him.”(page 352). That was Boo that was carrying Jem back to the Flinch house. Boo Radley saved their lives and Scout will never forget him and learned a valuable lesson
Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley is also very courageous throughout the novel. Boo contacts the children and gifts them items, wraps Scout in a blanket at Miss Maudie’s house fire, and rescues Jem and Scout from Bob
Scout, Jem, and Dill work many summers to try to get Boo to come out of the Radley house for the first time in many years. Jem had been told many things about Boo in his short years in Maycomb, and he tells his sister Scout about the ‘monster’, saying, “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” (chap. 1). Jem’s ideas about Boo are very biased toward rumors that can be heard around Maycomb. This shows how Maycomb’s people often judge before they know, seeing as no one has seen Boo Radley in over twenty years and people are prejudiced to believing the unknown is always bad. Prejudice and rumors can often not be trusted and Boo Radley is no exception. After Miss Maudie’s house catches fire and half the town rushes outside to watch it burn, Atticus tells Scout, “someday you should thank him for covering you up” then Scout asks, “Thank Who?” And gets a response from Atticus, “Boo Radley. You were too busy looking at the fire, you didn’t even notice when he put the blanket around you” (chap. 8). Boo Radley is not really a bad person, he
Boo Radley developed with his Almost unnoticeable interaction with Scout at the end of Chapter 8. Scout is watching Miss Maudie's house on fire and when atticus comes back he notices something. Scout is wrapped in a blanket that she didn't have when she left the house.Scout says that she stayed right where he told her to, in front of the Radley Place, but she and Jem saw Mr. Nathan fighting the fire. They Come to the conclusion that it must have been Boo who had put it on her. This would step up the interaction that boo had previously had with the children and now. This also contributes to the Children's Mystery regarding Boo Radley
He is referred to as a mockingbird because he suffers he is stuck and constantly talked negatively by the town.It's the only form of contact he has with the outside world. Boo (Arthur Radley) is actually a very shy character who is often misjudged by society including scout and jem. As the story goes on, we find Scout beginning to realize Boo radelys true intentions and the situation when she tells Atticus that exposing Boo would be "sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?” Throughout the novel, Scout, Jem, and Dill are curious about the "mysterious" Boo Radley because he never comes outside from his house or associates with anyone in the neighborhood.
Mr Radley was ashamed of his son’s behaviour when he got into the wrong crowd as a youngster and punished him by locking him up. There is a lot of gossip around Maycomb about Boo and people blame him for any bad things that happen in the neighbourhood, ‘Any stealthy crimes committed in Maycomb were his work.’ Jem turns him into a monster, ‘his hands were blood-stained’, and ‘his eyes popped’. At the end of the novel however, we find that Boo is misunderstood, and gossip of the town’s folk has made him up to be a ‘malevolent phantom’. Scout tells us he is timid, he had, ‘the voice of a child afraid of the dark’.
Boo is like a monster to Dill, Jem and Scout throughout the beginning of the novel although once the children see that he leaves them gifts inside a knothole in the tree in between their houses. He is only seen on one occasion in the novel, although he is talked about many times because Scout and Jem take an interest in him once they start to find out who he really is as a person. Boo Radley never really left his house even when he could simply because
Boo Radley is mentioned again. Jem understand him better after experiencing Tom's case. He says that Boo stays in the house to avoid being interfered by the other folks. Boo is definitely unwilling to despise anyone innocent out of prejudice. It reflects his virtue rather than horror. His unusual behavior makes him the target of prejudice. As the story continues, the children's idea gets closer to the truth.
In the novel , “To Kill a Mockingbird”, there are a few characters that get interpreted in the wrong way. Boo Radley is the one who gets the worst of it. Scout and Jem see Boo as an old, mean guy that stays cooped up in his house. But, it is not until after the court hearing that they understand how innocent and a good person Boo Radley is.
did not allow anyone to visit him or have the slightest contact with him. Eventually Boo's mental state triggers him to stabbed his father with a pair of scissors. Boo's fathers causes Boo to suffer innocently by stealing his childhood experiences away from him. This indicates that Boo is a mockingbird because he did very little to deserve this torment and isolation that his father inflicted upon him. Then, Jem and Scout from the beginning of the story never fully understood Boo's past life at all, yet they judged him on things they hear about. They suspect he was basically an evil monster that never comes out of his house. Scout starts the stereotyping by creating a nickname “Boo” for the innocent Arthur Radley. This nickname robs Arthur of his true name and identity, causing him to suffer. Furthermore, Jem and Scout constantly pester Boo in an attempt to discover his actual identity. They tell their best friend Dill that Boo is like a zombie. Jem describes Boo as being: “About six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cat 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 and he drooled most of the time” (Lee 13). The stereotypical image created by Jem completely robs Boo
At the start of the story Boo Radley is very shy and lives in his own shell. Nobody sees oo for the first couple chapters. “The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves” (Lee 11). Lee goes on to explain how the house is pretty much on lockdown on sundays which is usually the day that the whole town socializes. The Radley family is very secluded from the rest of the town and not many people know what they do. “I never knew how old Mr. Radley made his living” (Lee 11) says scout. Due to not many people knowing about Boo, he is thought of as a no good kid and is judged badly because he is among the lower class. “So Jem received most of the information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighborhood scold” (Lee 13). Although Boo is thought of badly, over time the town will come to love him for who he is.