Boo Radley And To Kill A Mockingbird

Boo Radley is a representation of the mockingbird because of his innocence and acts of kindness. While Miss Maudie's house was burning down, Boo Radley secretly wrapped a blanket around Scout. " 'Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn't know it when he put the blanket around you' " (Lee 60). Scout realizes that Boo Radley is a kind man who wants to protect and take care of her. The residents of Maycomb County know very little about him, but still spread rumors and view

Thoughts are like seeds that take root in our minds. They spawn feelings and more thoughts that can have powerful consequences. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the views of the townspeople in the 1930’s Southern town of Maycomb greatly impact the lives of two innocent men. The people make false accusations against Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley because they are different. These characters are representative of the author’s reoccurring symbol of the mockingbird, which signifies innocence, and subjects them to vulnerability. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, although innocent, fall victim to the hatred of society and thus emerge as mockingbirds. Tom Robinson, is black man, who is wrongfully

In addition to his curiosity of the children, Boo also demonstrates acts of kindness and concern towards Jem and Scout. This is evident through two scenarios that occur; one involving Jem and the other involving Scout. When Jem leaves the Radley property after retrieving his pants that were stuck the fence, he realizes that the pants were mended and folded, as if someone was waiting upon his arrival. “When I went back, they were folded across the fence… like they were expecting me [...] like somebody could tell what I was gonna do. Can’t anybody tell what I’m gonna do lest they know me, can they, Scout?” (78). Jem’s realization of the situation signifies that Boo Radley does in fact pay attention to the children and wanted to do something nice for them. By mending Jem’s pants and folding them neatly for him, Boo had shown a kindness that they had not seen before. Boo had also shown his concern for the children on the night of the fire, when Miss Maudie's house was erupt in flames. The children were waiting outside for their father, and Boo realized that they must have been cold, so he went and put a blanket around Scout. Scout had not noticed this until she was back at home, when Jem suggested that Boo had put the blanket around her. “‘Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up.’ ‘Thank who?’ I asked. ‘Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you’” (96).

But, Boo Radley is the person who left different kinds of presents for Scout and Jem and even decides to fix Jem’s pants for him. “Some tinfoil was sticking in a knot-hole just above my eye level, winking at me in the afternoon sun. I stood on tiptoe, hastily looked around once more, reached into the hole, and withdrew two pieces of chewing gum minus their outer wrappers.” (find page number). In this town of Maycomb, many people believe Boo Radley to be a scary, no one has seen him for years type of person. After doing these kind acts for the kids like giving them presents, he doesn’t seem so much like a threat to society. Near the beginning of the story, Harper Lee expresses the negative feelings of the people in the town of Maycomb toward Boo Radley, but as the story develops, these kids and some people in Maycomb realize he isn’t such a bad guy after all. “Why, we did. We stayed—’ Then whose blanket is that?’ ‘Blanket?’ ‘Yes ma’am, blanket. It isn’t ours.’ I looked down and found myself clutching a brown woolen blanket I was wearing around my shoulders, squaw-fashion.”...“Jem seemed to have lost his mind. He began pouring out our secrets right and left in total disregard for my safety if not for his own, omitting nothing, knot-hole, pants and all. …Mr. Nathan put cement in that tree, Atticus, an‘ he did it to stop us findin’ things—he’s crazy, I reckon, like

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

While the rumors said he harmed everything he touched, he was actually a kind person. Boo Radley left gifts in the tree for Jem and Scout, gave a blanket to Scout during the fire, and he even saved them from Mr. Ewell. Although he proved himself good to Atticus and scout, the town wouldn't ever know about his

At the beginning of the story, Jem and Scout was young , childish and lacked the ability to see things from other's point of view. From the children's point-of-view, their most compelling neighbor is Boo Radley, a man that always stay in his house and none of them has ever seen. During the summer , they find Boo as a chracacter of their amusement. They sneak over to Boo house and get a peek at him. They also acting out an entire Radley family. "Jem parceled out our roles: I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was come out andsweep the porch. Dill was old Mr. Radley: he walked up and down the sidewalk andcoughed when Jem spoke to him. Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the frontsteps and shrieked and howled from time to time"(chapter 4). Eventually , Atticus catch them and order

Another quote is when Atticus talks to Scout about the fire when he says to her, “Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you” (Lee 96). In this quote Atticus is saying that Boo Radley came and put the blanket around Scout. Boo takes care of Scout when he mysteriously puts the blanket on her. Overall, Boo saved both of the kid’s lives and tended to them during

Despite his mysterious presence throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo Radley is more of a father figure to Scout and Jem because he cares for them, he plays games with them, and he saved their lives. Boo is like father because he cares about both of them. An example of this is when boo put the blanket over scout on the night of the fire. When scouts finds out she has an unknown blanket on her Jem says, “Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you”

Rather than being the monster that the town seems to portray him as. Boo Radley testify to be a affable character. Boo Radley exhibits his various acts of secret compassion by leaving gifts under the tree for Scout and Jem. “He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives” (Lee 373). “Having been so accustomed to his absence, I found it incredible that he had been sitting beside me all this time, present.

Jem and Scout saw Boo Radley as a frightening man who was a childish superstition based off of the rumors from the town. As the children grew up the stories about Boo Radley caused them to become more fascinated than frightened by Boo. The Radley house intrigued them to the point where they snuck into the backyard to try to make Boo leave his house but that resulted in the children thinking that every sound they heard was Boo coming for revenge. In the first chapters, Jem describes how they pictured Boo, which 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…”. Logically it is understood just by Jem’s description that the children had no relationship with Boo Radley other than

He is innocent of all of the claims and stories made up about him. He is robbed of friendship and trust with the entire town and is hurt by the cruel remarks made by the townsfolk. He had never done anything to harm anyone or anything in his lifetime; instead he strove to help people whenever he could, but tried to help them as best he could without being seen or noticed. One cold night when Scout Finch was standing frozen cold outside the Radley house, Boo secretly slipped a blanket over Scout’s shoulders to give her warmth. He also gave the two children, Jem and Scout, a few presents in a knot hole of a tree to show his compassion and warm heart. He even helped to protect the two children when Bob Ewell tried to murder them both. These examples show his innocence and that he is obviously not a monster. Scout comes to realise that he has inner goodness that must be cherished, alike a mockingbird. The town had committed a sin by harming him from the cruel things they had made up about him. And it was a sin when Tom Robinson, an innocent man, was killed when it came to his turn in the novel.