The Mystery Named Boo Radley Permanently bloody hands. Yellow, rotten teeth. A long, jagged scar running across his face. It is easy to see why the Finch children and Dill Harris would be fearful of this obscure man named Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley, but the rumors that have been spread shouldn’t warrant their fear of Boo. This information is almost the extent of what the kids know about the puzzling, secretive man known as Boo, but the kids are determined to find out more about this mystery man in To Kill A Mockingbird. Boo has had quite a few horrifying rumors spread about him through the town of Maycomb, but a rumor alone is not enough to build a strong fear of someone without knowing them personally. One of the worst stories that has been told was from Miss Stephanie to Jem. She said she knew everything about Boo, and this is what he heard when she told him: ‘[...] 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.’ (Lee 11) This rumor is definitely disturbing, but you cannot take everything you hear for granted. As the story was told from person to person, I’m certain some of the details of the events that happened got twisted around, lost or misunderstood. As pointed out in other parts of the text, Boo had a troubling past but since he has been out of
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
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
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
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
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
After Jem reflects back on the events that have happened in Maycomb he says, “ Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley stayed shut up in the house all this time… it’s because he wants to stay inside” (Lee 227). The labels that were given to Boo could have made him feel isolated, causing him to want to stay in his house. Boo must have been saddened by theses labels, and the hurtful words could have caused him to not want to go outside. At the beginning of the story Scout is talking about Boo and begins to describes the rumors she heard about Boo. She acknowledges that, “ According to Miss Stephanie Crawford … as Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the sissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities” (Lee 11). Not only can labels affect people but the rumors about some one can hurt them as well. This is another reason why Boo could have decided to stay in his house, he may have known what people were saying and was discouraged by their words. Boo is affected by labels, causing him to feel lonley and
1. “…He was about six-and-a-half feet tall with hands that were permanently bloodstained… and a long jagged scar ran across his face… What teeth he had were yellow and rotten and his eyes bulged out of their sockets! (Pause). That was the initial gruesome description we were given for the harmless Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley, but did any of those horrific features actually appear reasonable to you? (Pause) I didn’t think so! When a mature reader reads this extract from the novel ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, they would immediately recognise that the description of ‘Boo’ is only a result of Jem Finch’s overactive imagination.
“ Nobody in Maycomb had nerve enough to tell Mr. Radley that his boy was a troubled teen” (Lee 12). Boo was never really close to his parents since he got in trouble all of the time. “ 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). Boo has spent about 15 years inside his house because he wants to stay there.
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’.
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
(1)There are many things people fear but more often than not its comes to misunderstanding or the unwillingness to learn And in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the character Boo or Arthur Radley is a great example of this.(2) Boo Radley is a NEET so as such he stays inside his home without leave, as such the children are naturally intrigued and afraid of him due to his mysterious nature.(3) As the story progressed Boo is generally described in a negative manner, the people in the town usually only talk of the negative things he may have done, as such the children create this fantastical image of him an image of fear curiosity and pity.(4) The descriptions the children give of Boo are so extreme that they make him nearly inhuman "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.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee tells why killing a mockingbird is a sin. Boo Radley is the symbol for the mockingbird. “Mocking don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.”
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