How Is Booo Portrayed In To Kill A Mockingbird

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.

When Jem sits down to write the Boo Radley a latter, he says “ We appreciate everything which you have to put into the tree for us” ( Lee, 69 ). This shows that the Jem and scout may not guess who’s doing it, Jem and scouts knows and finds that someone who is kind and innocent is showing friendship to Jem and scout. After writing a letter down to the Boo, Boo feels really good and happy about the letter he receives because he got a present from someone in the maycomb where he is known as a monstrous creature in the town. Most importantly, Boo is brave, but Jem and Scout will be more brave from getting the letter, because someone is appreciating the gifts he have gave for

In the novel, Boo's character symbolizes honesty; his character is an innocuous, genuine man who does nothing to the town except for stay inside more often than not. The topic, it is a wrongdoing to murder a mockingbird, is spoken to by Boo's character in the way that he doesn't add to the town's assumed 'sickness', yet the town still makes numerous inconsiderate suspicions about him. Atticus tells Scout ordinarily in the book that it is a wrongdoing to slaughter a mockingbird on the grounds that they don't do anything yet sing and make exquisite music for individuals. This is precisely the same as Boo's circumstance on the grounds that he is spoken to by the mockingbird, and it isn't a good fit for the individuals to discuss him and make bits of gossip about him, on the grounds that he doesn't do anything to mischief anybody, he just stays inside a great deal.

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’.

Boo is looked at wrongly, but he is just a quiet person. He’s not actually crazy. Scout says: “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really knew a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough,” (Lee 374). Lee shows how you can’t judge a person before you know them.

Firstly, in Maycomb, Boo Radley was one of the minor characters to have faced this problem. Boo is perceived to be a mad man who

While many examples of unjust acts exist through the book, the treatment of Boo Radley, more than any other example, clearly shows intolerance and unfair judgement. Even though they know little about Mr. Radley, the people of Maycomb harshly criticize and gossip about him. “The more we told Dill about the Radleys, the more he wanted to know, the longer he would stand hugging the light-pole on the corner, the more he would wonder” (Chapter 1). After hearing much gossip about Boo, in their innocence, the kids assume all they hear as the truth, and the community does not realize the unfair judgement and

In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Boo Radley is known among the people of Maycomb as a violent, mysterious phantom of a man; someone who started a gang, someone who stabbed his own father, and someone who was rumoured to eat live animals. Every crime was his doing, and to make all of this even more ominous, he only comes out of his droopy, sick, house at night to peer into people’s windows. As the children have never seen him, he is not viewed as a human being, but as some sort of monster. The children’s fear is reasonable as he has only been described as villainous.

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

At the beginning of the novel, Boo Radley, Scout’s neighbor that never came out of his house, was a terror to Scout. She couldn't understand why he never came out because she hadn't learned how to see things from other’s points of view. “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough” (Lee 374). At the end of this novel, Scout understands how Boo saw the world and why he didn't come out until he needed to save Jem and Scout. Just standing on the Radley porch made her realize this but without learning the lesson beforehand, she would have never thought to even look at the world form Boos point of

First of all, to the children in Maycomb, Boo Radley is very mysterious, they are scared but want to learn more about him. Telling a story or a myth to a child is not like telling it to an adult, children will listen and assume it is true even if it is a lie. Miss Stephanie tried to trick the kids by telling them, “Boo drove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities” (Lee 11). By telling the kids he drove the scissors in his parent’s leg made them scared of Boo and it makes him look crazy. Miss Stephanie’s plan worked, it made them scared, but it made them even more interested to look for him. Myths do not make Boo fit in or make him seem real, but the kids still think that everything

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

It was rumoured that he was locked in by his father and even after he passed away he is still locked in. Recently, he has attempted to make contact with the neighborhood children known as Scout Finch, Jem Finch, and “Dill” Harris. These children are curious towards Boo and his story. They would also make attempts to see or get into

In addition to his curiosity of the children, Boo also demonstrates acts of kindness and concern towards Jem and Scout. This is evident through two scenarios that occur; one involving Jem and the other involving Scout. When Jem leaves the Radley property after retrieving his pants that were stuck the fence, he realizes that the pants were mended and folded, as if someone was waiting upon his arrival. “When I went back, they were folded across the fence… like they were expecting me [...] like somebody could tell what I was gonna do. Can’t anybody tell what I’m gonna do lest they know me, can they, Scout?” (78). Jem’s realization of the situation signifies that Boo Radley does in fact pay attention to the children and wanted to do something nice for them. By mending Jem’s pants and folding them neatly for him, Boo had shown a kindness that they had not seen before. Boo had also shown his concern for the children on the night of the fire, when Miss Maudie's house was erupt in flames. The children were waiting outside for their father, and Boo realized that they must have been cold, so he went and put a blanket around Scout. Scout had not noticed this until she was back at home, when Jem suggested that Boo had put the blanket around her. “‘Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up.’ ‘Thank who?’ I asked. ‘Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you’” (96).

I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time... it’s because he wants to stay inside.'' This is the first step Jem and Scout take to understand Boo, as Jem realizes that, with all the hate going around in Maycomb, maybe Boo just wants to stay inside, away from society. From now on, the kids become less preoccupied with Boo as their, and the reader’s, perception of him changes. While Boo is still an other, he is no longer a monster and is now more of a mockingbird, an innocent neighbor trying to stay inside, away from the hate Jem and Scout are currently experiencing in