Essay on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

It’s interesting to see the ways different authors depict how a character matures. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mocking Bird we can easily see how she chose to do it. The novel is set in Alabama in the 1930’s, while black vs. white racism was a big issue and problem for many. Atticus is the father of Scout and Jem, young children who witness the discrimination first hand when their father, a white man, defends a black man in court. Lee does a great job developing the characters; especially the narrator, Jean Louise Finch (Scout). Scout’s thoughts, conversations, and actions, illustrate that she’s emotionally maturing from the innocent child that she was.

This is a strange character in the novel because Boo Radley never came out of his house and the children thought of him as a

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

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.

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

What it Means to Kill a Mocking Bird: an in depth analysis of the morals in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

As children grow up, they open their eyes to the harsh truths in the world around them that they once did not understand or question. This is experienced by the main characters of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is of a girl called Scout and her older brother, Jem, who go through the trials of growing up in the fictional small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. Racism is rampant in the mindset of the townspeople, shown when the children’s lawyer father, Atticus, takes the case of an obviously innocent African-American man and they convict him in their hearts before the trial even starts. Through this all, we can see the theme of loss of innocence in the children. Lee uses characterization to portray

2. Arthur Radley, or “Boo Radley”, the son of Mr. Radley is a distant, lonely, isolated man who isn’t ever seen by people outside his house. People in Maycomb perceive him as an awful person, with a terrifying appearance who fills them with aghast.

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

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

2. Arthur Radley, or “Boo Radley”, the son of Mr. Radley is a distant, lonely, isolated man who isn’t ever seen by people outside his house. People in Maycomb perceive him as an awful person, with a terrifying appearance who fills them with aghast.

In the beginning of the book we are introduce to several young children. People could say these children are rather rambunctious and wild. Scout and Jem are brother and sister who live with their father. Not to far from the beginning we are introduced to a boy named Dill. Dill was a boy who came in the summer to live with his aunt. These children eventually hear a story about a boy named Arthur Radley. Arthur's nickname that every would call him is Boo Radley. Boo would would never come out of his house and that inspired Scout, Jem, and Dill to mock and make fun of him.

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’.

Arthur Radley was protective, but more or less to the Finch children as they cared about Boo and had an interest in him. A time in To Kill a Mockingbird, where Arthur was protective was when Scout and Jem were walking home from a pageant, and someone was following them. The person following them was Bob Ewell, but they did not know that Bob Ewell wanted revenge on Atticus by trying to kill his children. During this time someone saved both Scout and Jem not knowing who it was. It was Boo Radley.

In this novel the children grow up with the tells of Boo Radley. Since then they developed a relationship and learned important life lessons.