Boo Radley, or Arthur Radley had been kept isolated from the rest of the community as punishment for one act of delinquency, from what evidence is given in the book. He is seen in public again at the age of thirty-three, after he stabs his father’s thigh with scissors. Mr. Radley then keeps Boo at home after he spends some time in the courthouse basement, and never leaves the house. Mr. Radley and his elder son Nathan violate Boo’s rights to education and therapy, right to participation in community life, and the right to a guardian that would care for Boo’s well-being and interests.
According to the Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons by the United Nations Human Rights Office, those mentally disabled “has, to the maximum degree of feasibility, the same rights as other human beings,” (Resolution 2856). The book does not declare Boo mentally disabled, except for the rumor that he had stabbed his father’s leg with scissors (Lee, 12). However, one must remember that Boo Radley may have been kept in solitary confinement since he was 18 years old, and may have experienced abuse of any type from his father. Boo was supposedly locked in the courthouse basement alone, rather than be jailed with the Black people of Maycomb county. The second point of the declaration indicated that Boo is entitled to “proper medical care and physical therapy and to such education, training, rehabilitation and guidance as will enable him to develop his ability and maximum potential,”
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
The class was very chaotic with many unexpected events including Burris Ewell’s bugs and rude behavior, and Walter Cunningham’s absence of lunch and refusal of money. Miss Caroline did not know how to properly handle some situations because she was on edge nothing seemed to be going exactly going as planned. Not only was Scout able to step into Miss Caroline’s shoes, but later in the novel she got to see what it was like to walk around in Boo Radley’s shoes. At first Scout thinks of Arthur “Boo” Radley as a terrible, violent man who did not love or appreciate anyone. This impression of Boo was made up of almost entirely rumors. Some of these include When Boo stabbed his father’s leg with a pair of scissors at the age of 33, and how Boo would go out in the dead of night and peep into other people's windows. Other rumors comprised of people's azaleas froze when Boo breathed on them, and how the pecans that dropped from the Radley tree on to the school grounds would kill any person who touched it. Besides the rumors, there are some facts that support Scout’s perception of Arthur Radley. One of these is that Boo had gone unseen for a period of 15 years and had no other human interaction besides his
Boo Radley is a ‘malevolent phantom’ and a character that has been shaped by gossips and sustained by children’s imaginations. “Stephanie Crawford, a neighbourhood scold… said she woke up in the middle of the night and saw him looking straight through the window at her.” This dialogue is an example of the gossips and how the legend of Boo Radley developed, lies that persecute his innocence. Setting is used to develop Boo’s surroundings and to summon an eerie atmosphere giving Maycomb reason enough to reject and victimise him for being different. “…rain rotten shingles drooped… oak trees kept the sun away and the remains of a picket fence drunkenly guarded the front yard.” The Radley house has been established as a neglected, out of place and isolated home through Harper Lee’s use of connotative words. This evokes within the reader the same view of Boo as the rest of the town and allows us to understand where the misunderstanding comes from before we
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.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, the mockingbird symbolizes Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Boo Radley is symbolized by the mockingbird in two different ways. The first reason that he resembles the mockingbird is that throughout the book, he does not harm Jem or Scout, and actually helps them. This is like a mockingbird because mockingbirds provide beautiful music for us to enjoy, and are not a vicious animal. When Jem, Dill, and Scout snuck into the Radley yard, Boo helped cover up their tracks. After Mr. Nathan Radley shot at Jem, Jem lost his pants. When he returned to get his pants, Jem found them hung neatly on the fence, sewn up by Boo. Boo also gave the children gifts through the tree. He placed items, including soap dolls, chewing gum, a medal, a watch,
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
Throughout this journal, one can predict the kids will not meet Boo because he is locked up and they are scared of him. One reason why the kids will not meet Boo is because he is locked up. A reason to support this is because he stabbed his father with a pair of scissors. One quote from the book to give you a visualization is “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” (Lee 13). As you can see Boo can not think through his actions before doing them. He does not see that what he does deeply affects others around him. Next, another reason he is locked up is nobody sees a lot of activity coming in and out of the Radley household. Maycomb is a quiet
Backtracking years, even decades, one will find the origin of Boo Radley’s knack for violence. It started when he was just a teenager. Fitting in with the wrong crowd, he befriended the Cunninghams. The closest thing to a gang Maycomb ever had, they went around causing, not too much mayhem at first, but soon became more and more violent. The first serious offense they committed was locking poor old Mr. Conner, Maycomb’s beadle, in the courthouse outhouse after they resisted arrest. Now one might be thinking, Oh, that was a long time ago. Boo’s changed. Well, he hasn’t. He’s only become worse since then. Not even thirteen years ago, the town saw Boo for the first time in fifteen years, when he drove a pair of scissors into his father’s leg. Every single person in the town knows the truth; Boo Radley is lethal. This is proof that he has kept his violent nature over the years, perhaps practicing for when a racist pig of a man attacks two children. That is, two children he has been stalking.
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.
I predict that the kids will not meet Boo Radley. One reason they will not meet him is that he is locked up. He was locked away by his father, because of his troublesome gang. Boo’s gang locked a town member in the courthouse outhouse. For many, that was the last straw. They could not take anymore of the gang’s exasperating actions. The judge sentenced the gang to be sent to the state industrial school. Mr. Radley, a proud man, thought the sentence disgraceful. Instead, he decided to lock Boo inside the house as discipline. Also, the Radley family rarely goes out. Even before the incident, they rarely withdrew from their house. They kept their doors closed, all throughout the week. In Maycomb, having a closed door on Sunday is unheard of. The Radley family did not socialize either. Mr. Radley’s only response to the children’s morning greetings was a curt cough. The Radley house also had
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird the character of Boo Radley is the first to suffer the loss of his innocence. As a teen, Boo experienced trouble with the law and for his consequences his father imprisoned him in his own house. Because of the harsh consequences forced upon him by his father, Boo grew up without a
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’.
“[W]hen the sheriff arrived…old Mr. Radley said no Radley was going to any asylum, when it was suggested that a season in Tuscaloosa might be helpful to Boo. Boo wasn’t crazy, he was high-strung at times. It was right to shut him up, Mr. Radley conceded, but insisted that Boo not be charged with anything: he was not a criminal. The Sheriff hadn’t the heart to put him in jail alongside Negroes, so Boo was locked in the courthouse basement” (Lee 14).