Significance Of Maturity In Pleasantville

Many young and innocent kids will grow up and see the world from a different perspective. One would naturally become worried for all future generations who will one day grow, and loose their innocence. I find it amazing how from such a young age children have to become mature, they loose out on your childhood and their ability to be children because they have to mature way too fast for their age. Gone are the days

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

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

Everyone knows that once Pandora’s box is open, it is really hard to get it closed again and havoc and turmoil is released in to the world. Well, this being a similar situation, the town folk go berserk and start burning books and vandalizing the soda shop and destroying a lot of the furniture. Betty’s own friends along with some of the high school boys come after her because of her non conformity. All of this highly charged emotion which is so unpleasant in Pleasantville turns the whole town color until everyone, even the mayor turns color and society as Pleasantville is changed forever. The “bi-cultural binds” (Gunn Allen) that Betty was wearing fall off as her community- including her husband- come to terms with adopting individuality as the new norm.

When he was young, Boo was following the wrong crowd, and was in trouble with the law. Despite all of this he is not jaded by the justice system and decides to make better use of his life with little notice to the harsh words of the community. Miss Maudie offers insight into the origins of Boo’s reclusiveness to the children and a sympathetic view, “I remember Arthur Radley when he was a boy. He always spoke nicely to me no matter what folks said he did. Spoke as nicely as he knew how.” (p. 51). Unlike other people who may continue a life of crime after coming into contact with the brutal reality of the legal system, he made the choice to turn himself around, and was trying his best to change the image that other people had of him. If it was someone else, then they would have taken the easy way out by either just continuing that life of crime or by running away from reality. Boo on the other hand, took the hard way, being fully aware of the ridged track that lay ahead of him to be able to integrate back into society. Understanding his mistakes, Boo leaves the events of the past behind and decides to restart his life to the right track and hence showing true courage for his fighting

To start, Boo Radley is one character in the book To Kill a Mockingbird that represents the mockingbird theme. First of all, throughout the book, Boo has been helpful to Jem and Scout. When Mr. Ewell attacked Jem and Scout, it was Boo who came to their rescue and murdered Mr. Ewell (Lee 362). For this reason, Boo can be considered a mockingbird because mockingbirds are innocent and do nothing but help people. Even though the rumors about Boo told otherwise, Boo had never done anything to hurt his neighbors, suggesting that he watches over them, which is equivalent to singing his own silent mockingbird song. The children had never been nice to him in the past (mocked him with games, invaded his privacy), but he still chose to help them. Also,

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’.

Lee uses many character examples and situations to create a strong impression of the inequality that Tom Robinson experiences within the novel. Boo Radley is used as a representation of the social injustice that Robinson undergoes during the buildup of the trial and the trial itself. Boo Radley being a victim of rumors; an example of how an assumption of what others have heard determine how a person is even with proven evidence. The characters have reactions to how unfair the town itself is, Jem even believing the reason Boo stays hidden is because “he wants to stay inside.” This pushes the idea that Boo stays out of sight to escape the people within the town. This is powerful in the novel and to the reader itself because it presents that the townspeople are filled with inequity, conveying how strong the injustice is.

“Suddenly he was jerked backwards and flung on the ground, almost carrying me with him” (Lee 350). To save the kids, Boo jumps upon an attacker who tries to kill Jem and Scout, and stabs him in the back. Boo Radley, a man rumored as weird and reclusive, unexpectedly saves Jem and Scout, showing a sudden change in character, which proves that appearances don’t make a man. “Will you take me home?” (Lee 372). Meekly, Boo asks Scout to take him home after he saved them from the attacker. First portrayed as eerie, then as heroic, Boo discloses his true shy and timid personality. Lee uses Boo’s unexpected bashfulness as yet another unanticipated switch in character, which helps uphold the unreliability of first impressions. His stupefying debut to protect Jem and Scout from an attacker and his unforeseen timid personality authenticates Boo Radley’s startling shifts in character as part of the novel’s theme: initial manifestations frequently

One’s childhood innocence is never lost, it simply plants the seed for the flower of maturity to bloom. It seems that almost every adult chooses to either forget or ignore this childhood vulnerability. But ironically, it was this quality that pushed them into adulthood in the first place. At the peak of their childhood, their post climactic innocence allows room for the foundation of maturity to begin to grow. In the sleepy southern town of Maycomb this is exactly what happens to eight years old Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. In To Kill a Mockingbird the character Scout is forced to surround herself with a very adult situation, when a trial comes to the small town of Maycomb. The trial raises the question that shakes the entire town up, what

There is the old time saying they are too young to understand, however young children are effected by

Children can be brainwashed and perceive things differently from adults, because of their lack of wisdom. Despite the fact that a child grows up from a good life or a struggling life a child will choose their own path of the experiences and influences they have

Harper Lee uses Boo Radley to symbolize a mockingbird through the prejudice he faced from the citizens of Maycomb. The rumors spread about the Radley’s scared everyone, “A Negro would not pass the Radley place at night,” and almost anything in the yard was said to be poisonous (Lee 11). All the horrible assumptions made about Boo and his home were just rumors, yet most everyone believed them. Since Boo did not meet up to the town’s expectations it was easy for them to criticize and deride him. After being saved by Boo Radley, Scout compares him to a mockingbird, “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird…” (Lee 370). Boo is compared to a mockingbird in this instance because he is not accustomed to the spotlight. Throwing him out to receive praise from Maycomb would be equivalent to leaving him out for the wolves. Boo also saves the children from Bob Ewell and takes Jem home (Lee 351-352). Boo saves the children out of the goodness of his

As far back as the reader can remember, Boo Radley was depicted as a cold-hearted and insane human being. For instance, when Scout recalls that “Any small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work...he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch”(10). This is a clear example of some of the prejudice Boo would face on a regular basis, prejudice concerning him could always be heard around the town whether it was a warning or a myth. Due to the amount of prejudice Boo faces, he decides it is best to stay isolated from the people in Maycomb. The reader knows this could be the case as Scout thinks “Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . because he [wanted] to stay inside”(304). As a consequence of prejudice, Boo’s reputation has been tarnished, he could never be trusted to come back into Maycomb again. Due to all the negative opinions surrounding him, he is no longer looked at as a member of society, but as an outcast who will forever be remembered as

Persons who are more than 17 years have learnt how to resist persaution and look at what they have to manipulate it to there desires and and needs. Persons who are 14-16 years are more of