Why Is Boo Radley Unfair

Boo is a very important character in the book, in fact, the novel opens with Scout and her interactions with Boo and is closed by it too. Scout learns about Boo though the gossip passed on through neighbors in the community. The stories are scary and many out of context, however, Scout doesn’t seem to notice this till after the trial. At the beginning of the book she plays a game that involves Boo, and she tries to torment him into coming out. When Scout describes Boo Radley she says, "People said 'Boo' Radley went out at night and peeped in people’s windows. That he breathed on flowers and they froze instantly. They said he committed little crimes in the night but not one ever saw him." This shows that Scout sees Boo as an object of fascination instead of a human being. She does not acknowledge that he has emotions or feelings, she just views him as a monster who does horrible things to people. Furthermore, we can learn that Boo is not a very loved or respected figure in the community due to his strange way of living. As the trial takes place Scout matures and her level of complex thinking increases, but it is not until October 24th that we see how her perception of Boo changes since in the trial she saw how badly they treated Tom Robinson and she directly connected it to Boo “I hugged him and said, “Yes, sir. Mr. Tate was right, it’d be sort of

The community has ostracized Boo Radley from the community even though most people don’t know him. “Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows.” (Lee 5). This is how the community saw Boo Radley in the beginning of the book (Lee). This outlook of Boo has made everyone scared to even walk past his family’s house (Lee). At the end of the book Boo helps Scout and Jem out from an attack from Bob Ewell when they were on their way back home (Lee). After that event they look at Boo differently till the end of the story. This type of discrimination happens in today’s society still and in movies everyone has seen such as the “Sandlot”.

In the book, Scout and Jem are inadvertently deceived about Boo Radley. Boo is a shut-in whose reclusive lifestyle is viciously commented on by the residents of Maycomb. The gossip spurs Scout’s and Jem’s fascination with Boo Radley and drives them to incorporate Boo into their games and activities.

Prejudice is one of the world’s greatest struggles. It does not only hold society back, but is harmful to the people who do good .In Harper Lee’s book To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout and Jem live through and witness prejudice and racism in the small town of Maycomb. They see someone wrongly accused of a crime because of his race. Scout and Jem also witness and take part in prejudice against a man no one knows anything about. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee uses characterization to show the negative effects of prejudice and racism.

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, injustice is a main theme that is reflected towards many characters. To Kill a Mockingbird, is a novel written by Harper Lee and published in the nineteen-sixties. Many characters in the story are treated unfairly in society due to racial or prejudicial attitudes. Overall these characters are innocent victims of injustice. Atticus, Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson are considered to be mockingbirds in the novel. A mockingbird was defined as a bird that did nothing wrong, but sang beautiful music for us to hear. These characters did nothing wrong and were treated unfairly in their town. In this different society, there are many factors that have had an influence on people’s perceptions towards others.

“Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a profound tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there” ~ Scott Peck. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird abounds with the injustice produced by social, gender, and racial prejudice. The setting of the book takes place in the 1930s, where racism is a big deal in society. In the novel Harper Lee uses a mockingbird as an analogy to the characters. The Mockingbird is a symbol for Three Characters in the book, Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley. The people of Maycomb only know Boo Radley and Tom Robinson by what others say about them. These Characters are then characterized by other people 's viewpoints. In the novel there are many themes that are adjacent to our lives, the one that is found in To Kill A Mockingbird is Human Conflict comes from the inability for one to understand another. “ You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (39)

At some point everyone has judged someone or has been judged , and this leads to stereotypes and prejudice. In to “Kill a Mockingbird” Harper Lee displays how judging a man by his color leads to unfortunate events. Through symbolism , stereotypes, colorism , Harper lee shows that everyone eventually judges even if they don’t see it as judging .

Stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing, plays a big role in “To kill a Mockingbird”, and it’s also a big role in the thirties when everyone was different. In the story there are three different groups of people, the wealthy, the poor, and the black. Each of these group with some exceptions like the Finch family, looks at each other with offset opinions. The stereotyping in this story makes it come true and really plays a big part in character development.

In the Novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Lee uses the characters Mrs. Dubose, Mr. Dolphus Raymond, and Tom Robinson to show the many ways that deceptive appearance can be seen. If it is the individual who puts up a mask, one’s personality, or past stereotypes that cause deceptive appearances: Lee tries to show you throughout the novel how perceiving someone before they get the chance to show you who they are, often turns out they are not as bad or they are not like how they once seemed to be. Today in our society many people are afraid to show who they are in fear of judgment of others so they put up a front so that they will be judge that part of them instead of that part of their true selves. Society’s eyes is the cause of the need to be a false image of yourself and the reason why people analyze someone based on stereotypes before getting to know their

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

Boo Radley never harmed anyone, but was judged by the rumors spreading across the community. Although he was not actually introduced until the end of the novel, Boo Radley is set up to be the last discovered symbolic character for the image of the mockingbird. During the last chapter of the novel, Scout comes to the realization that blaming Boo for Bob Ewell's death would be "sort of like shooting' a mockingbird." (chapter 30). Getting Boo sent to jail or killed would be like killing a mockingbird. Boo is truly a good person. He left gifts for Jem and Scout in the trunk of a tree, he wrapped a blanket around them when Miss Maudie's house caught on fire, and he saved them from Bob Ewell when he tried to murder them. Boo Radley is a victim of Maycomb's social prejudice and a perfect representation of Harper Lee's description of the mockingbird.

At the beginning of the story, Jem and Scout was young , childish and lacked the ability to see things from other's point of view. From the children's point-of-view, their most compelling neighbor is Boo Radley, a man that always stay in his house and none of them has ever seen. During the summer , they find Boo as a chracacter of their amusement. They sneak over to Boo house and get a peek at him. They also acting out an entire Radley family. "Jem parceled out our roles: I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was come out andsweep the porch. Dill was old Mr. Radley: he walked up and down the sidewalk andcoughed when Jem spoke to him. Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the frontsteps and shrieked and howled from time to time"(chapter 4). Eventually , Atticus catch them and order

Boo being the mysterious neighbor that never comes out many rumors formed around him like when Jem said “ 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…” (16). All these rumors made it seem like Boo was a monster and the adults played along. On the contrary all of these false accusations came to an end when Boo steps up and defends Scout against Bob Ewell. He was a sickly white and acted almost childlike. Boo wasn’t a bad person but all the rumors that had built up made it seem that way and Scout learning the error of her ways decides to actually interact with him by walking him home. She sees after that all lies that were told were mere gossip and without getting to know the person better the rumor could never be broken. Not following rumor any longer and instead allowing people a chance and showing their true

For him, like many other real-life Negroes in American history, the principles underpinning political, social and criminal justice failed. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus’ belief that, “in our courts all men are created equal,” ( p. 209) makes a complete mockery of the judicial system.

In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, one of Harper Lee’s critical themes is how racial stereotypes hurt society as a whole. Her use of certain characters like Atticus and Miss Maudie reinforce the major themes of the novel. These stereotypes seem like they are only fictional, but they are still evident in society today. Harper Lee uses the characters in her novel to show the dangers of stereotyping and how to break racial indifference in society.