Rumors In To Kill A Mockingbird

That is when they took Boo home and locked him up in his own house. Some fifteen years later some neighbor saw a horrible deed. She saw Boo sitting in the living room just cutting up some magazines and when Mr. Radly walk in Boo took the scissors and stabbed him in the leg. Soon after Mrs. Radley came running out screaming, and police did not want to send the boy in jail, so he sent the boy to the room under the courthouse. He was taken back in his house some time later, but that was only when the court said he die from mold. It also did not help that the Radleys where a closed off and strange family in general in Maycomb. The family did not go to church and had there curtains pulled over the windows on Sunday too. Mr. Radly only came out to ‘work’ and buy what was need and Mrs. Radley was almost never seen, and they were just closed off and no one tried to get close. I also do not think they will meet Boo because Jem and Scout are scared of him. There is the rumor of what he looks like and that just sends chills done their bones. After all the kids thought he “was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrel and any cats he could catch, that’s why his

Jagged facial scars, disgusting yellow teeth, big bug eyes and drool dripping from his mouth, were the rumors that were spread about a man that will later show his true self to the Finch children, as a kind and caring person. The small town of Maycomb, located in Alabama, is a town where everybody knows everybody business. It is a place where rumors are guaranteed to go around, rumors about a man named Arthur Radley. Arthur “Boo” Radley is not how everyone perceived him to be in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, as shown through the town’s image of Boo, the foreshadowing taking place at the scene of Miss Maudie’s house catching fire, as well as the plot twist that takes place at the end of the book.

In Maycomb, a small, close knit community, Boo is perceived as an outcast due to his introverted personality. This creates misunderstanding and false impressions amongst the townspeople, contributing to an unknown feel of his character. In “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Harper Lee implements both imagery and informative details to develop Boo Radley’s true kind-hearted character, and not Maycomb’s skewed perception of him. Applying imaginative imagery and details, Lee first establishes Boo as a mysterious, unseen figure concealed within the Radley house from the perspective of a child. Answering Dill’s inquiries regarding this reclusive individual

When autumn came around, Scout started thinking of how “... And Boo’s children needed him”(374). Scout started to realize how every gift Jem and her found in the knothole represented an event in their life. One night while Jem and Scout were walking from Scout’s school pageant, Bob Ewell ( a drunk that forced his daughter to accuse Tom Robinson) attacked the kids. A hero, most known as Boo Radley came to the rescue and saved them and took them home and made sure they got there safely. If it was not for Boo, the kids would have been killed that night.

First, Jem, Dill and Scout are curious about Boo (Arthur) Radley since he has not been seen out of his house in several years. One day, the children write a letter to Boo, wondering if he is still alive. Atticus caught them, red-handed, when they were about to put the letter in Boo’s house and said, “I’m going to tell you something and I’m going to tell you one time: stop tormenting that man. That goes for the two of you” (65). Jem, Scout and Dill learn that cannot torment Boo.

Boo is kind to the children despite the children unintentionally insulting him. Boo Radley is a mystery to the children because he stays locked up in his house with no contact to the outside world. Scout, Jem and Dill, being children, begin to reenact the life of Boo based on rumors and their imagination. Although this may seem insulting, Boo understands that they are children, he even gives them gifts in a knot hole. “The following week the knot-hole yielded a tarnished medal. Jem showed it to Atticus, who said it was a spelling medal, that before we were born the Maycomb County schools had spelling contests

Gossip has been around for a long time as it is part of human nature. It can start a war, and it can also create bonds. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Miss Stephanie are affected by gossip, revealing that the mistreatment and judgement of others can be harmful towards people and things around them. While gossip is affecting Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Miss Stephanie, this is revealing what a town can do with gossip and how it can destroy others.

“When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work. (9/147)” Boo Radley is clearly misjudged just because no one sees him. Rumors and assumptions often dictated people’s views on things at that time. Scout is also very vague when she refers to “people,” which could mean that no one really said that. Crazy Addie was convicted of nocturnal disturbances in Maycomb, but people thought that it was somehow Boo Radley who committed the disturbances. Jem gives a description of Boo that Dill and Scout consider “reasonable.” However, the children don’t know what reasonable is, because they have never really seen him. “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. (11)” Boo is also described as six and a half feet tall, and he kills and eats squirrels and cats to survive. This was a description by a child who has never seen the actual person. Children have a lot of imagination, so they tend to exaggerate things. They want excitement in their lives at the expense of judging a man whom they cannot prove anything about. Stephanie Crawford

In part one of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the reader is introduced to Scout, the narrator of the book, her family and other members of the community in which she lives. Scout and her older brother Jem are the children of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Maycomb County, Alabama during the Great Depression. Scout and Jem meet Dill, a boy spending the summer with his Aunt Rachel. He is between Scout and Jem’s age and becomes a great friend and playmate. He, like Scout and Jem are enjoying the freedom of no school, using their imagination inventing, and playing games throughout the summer. Next door to Scout and Jem, lives a very curious individual whom they have never seen but heard rumors about. This individual has been kept isolated by his father because of some innocent pranks he was involved in over fifteen years ago. Arthur “Boo” Radley is a young man rumored to be root of all evil in the small town of Maycomb. Curiosity is a theme repeated throughout part one as the Scout, Jem, and Dill desire to know or learn more about life and Boo Radley.

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

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

Living in the sleepy town of Macomb, Alabama, Scout Finch and her brother Jem Finch go on different adventures with their foreign comrade Dill. In doing so, they discover Arthur Radley also known as Boo an old man who has never ventured out past his doorstep. There father, Atticus, a peaceful and quiet lawyer and their black maid Calpurnia teach them import lesson about racial equality. During the fall Dill returns home and Scout goes to school. She detests it, for she is very smart and too advanced for the class. During school Jem and scout find a hole in a tree filled with gum. They take the gum, but little do they know that Arthur Radley had placed it there for them to enjoy. Later in that year they spy on boo only to discover that he wanted to be left alone.

In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of the characters, Boo Radley, has a specific role. Boo Radley’s role shows us what effect rumors have on people, and how powerful rumors can be. In addition, it teaches us a moral of not believing every rumor that people pass on, because most of the time it's a lie. At the beginning of the book, Scout and Jem, two of the main characters, discuss the rumors that they heard about Boo, what he did, and his family. Boo does not have a positive reputation in his town. Boo doesn’t go out of his house very often , which leads people to make up rumors and spread these untruthful lies to the town. Harper Lee leaves us, the readers, without really knowing who Boo Radley is and whether or not these

“I guess rumors are more exciting than the truth.”-Venus Williams. People spread rumors because they feel that it will interest them more than the truth. In some ways, creating rumors can give people a reason to for them to believe that something is more flared than what the actual truth is. In other words, this means that people elaborate and stretch the actual truth in a situation, rather than believing the astounding truth. Often times, this helps people compress the unknown, and fill in the gaps to the clues that don’t make sense. Not understanding the unknown is hard, and leads to people jumping to conclusions when they don't even know exactly what happened. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, rumors spread throughout the town creating stereotypes and changing many people’s once honorable reputation and unfairly forcing them to alter their way of life forever.

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