Set in the 1940’s, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird features a man named Arthur Radley, though the people of Maycomb know him as Boo. He is described as a malevolent phantom, hence his nickname, that eats cats and is over seven feet tall. Boo is known as the town recluse and madman. Nevertheless, there may be some reason for his eccentric behavior. As said by William Shakespeare, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Boo Radley is the character in To Kill a Mockingbird that best portrays the idea of madness. His behavior is definitely considered eccentric. As a teenager, Boo got involved with the wrong crowd of people. The group he was in was considered by the other characters as the closest thing to a gang that Maycomb …show more content…
However, to any onlookers, especially adults, this act seems to be similar to something a stalker would do, and is considered more creepy than kind. Early on, Boo did not leave the house simply because he could not. His father would not allow him, mostly because of the agreement with the judge that if Boo was not sent to a reformatory school, he would stay inside the house. However, the Radleys were portrayed as a devoutly religious family. Maybe part of the reason Boo could not leave the house was that he had embarrassed the family by doing wrong and breaking the law. After fifteen years of confinement, Boo stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors. This also seems random and unexplainable. However, Mr. Radley was not necessarily known as the nicest man in Maycomb. In fact, when he died, Calpurnia had no sorrowful, or even kind, words to spare for him. Instead, as they were carrying his body out of the house, Calpurnia said he was the “meanest man that ever breathed.” Also, when Scout was talking to Miss Maudie about Boo’s home life, she said that “you never know what goes on behind closed doors.” These opinions given by two people that are never quick to judge lead us to believe that there might have been some abuse toward Boo in the Radley household. Maybe stabbing Mr. Radley was, in actuality, his reaction to years of maltreatment from his father. When Nathan came to
Boo Radley was an adult that was thought to believe that he stabbed his dad in the leg with scissors when he was a teenager. Scout, Jem, and Dill always feared him. The feared him so much, that they always cautioned whenever they crossed over to their house. They even made a dare that involved braveness and Boo Radley. ¨Well how'd you feel if you'd been shut up for a hundred years with nothin' but cats to eat?¨ But Boo isn’t is bad as he seems. First of all, it was uncertain, whether he actually stabbed his dad or not. Number 2, he’s been there for Scout. For example, he put the blanket around Scout, during the house fire of one of Scout’s neighbors. And how he saved Scout and Jem from
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
Boo Radley is portrayed as a crazy maniac due to the rumors spread about him and a trial he underwent as a teenager.(Scout) "So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighborhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing. According to Miss Stephanie, Boo was sitting in the livingroom cutting some items from 'The Maycomb Tribune' to paste in his scrapbook. His father entered the room. As Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities."(pg 11)Scout and Jem look upon him with fear and suspicion from the stories that surround them from the time they were children. She gradually becomes aware that Boo is just lonely and wants
In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee one of the characters, Arthur “Boo” Radley, has a major struggle with society. He is an outcast. Boo being an outcast is caused by many different factors, he deals with it in different ways, and his struggle with society is important.
Arthur “Boo” Radley is a man who was involved in a gang when he was young. Now he is seen as an insane and murderous person by the town. People rumor him to walk around at night and peer in people's windows and eat squirrels and cats.
2. Arthur Radley, or “Boo Radley”, the son of Mr. Radley is a distant, lonely, isolated man who isn’t ever seen by people outside his house. People in Maycomb perceive him as an awful person, with a terrifying appearance who fills them with aghast.
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
2. Arthur Radley, or “Boo Radley”, the son of Mr. Radley is a distant, lonely, isolated man who isn’t ever seen by people outside his house. People in Maycomb perceive him as an awful person, with a terrifying appearance who fills them with aghast.
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
In To Kill a Mockingbird, there are several characters that appear to be alienated from society, but Arthur “Boo” Radley is the most important to the plot because he causes mystery and curiosity for Jem and Scout throughout most of the book, but the mystery is solved by the end of the book. Boo Radley was, according to the book, as very pale and sick looking with his clothes in very poor condition.
Boo was seen as an evil phantom in the beginning of the book but later on in the book he was described to be a friendly person. Radley’s family has always been anti-social. Since they are anti-social the matters of the family never came out so, people started to assume about them. Most of the rumors are about Boo because he hasn’t been out of the house for years. The rumors were that he stabbed his father with scissors during his 15th year and he was chained to the bed as punishment. Jem, Scout, and Dill actually believed these rumors were true at first. They even use play a game, where they are acting one of the Radley's family
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’.
Arthur “Boo” Radley was another character that was alienated from society; however he was confined to his house for so many years that he eventually just became separated from the outside world. Many people were afraid of him because of rumors they heard saying he was psychotic, but in all reality his only problem was that he had one run in with the law.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the characters in the book, Boo Radley, is perceived as a very violent and unintelligent individual compared to the average Maycomb citizen. Boo is labeled with this classification because when he was 33, he was using scissors to cut out newspaper articles and he suddenly stabbed his father, Mr. Radley, in the leg and went back to cutting the paper immediately after. After more consideration of the book, however, Boo could be depicted by numerous people as a nice person and just distressed by his current home situation. The motive for his unexpected aggression possibly was not because he was crazy, but because he had been locked away in his house for years as a consequence of a minor incident with the law
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