To Kill A Mockingbird Walter Cunningham Quotes

A ball of twine. A packet of gum. A spelling medal. These are just some of the many things Boo Radley left Jem and Scout in the hole in the tree. Before Nathan Radley put cement in the tree, the best part of Jem and Scout’s day was finding one of these treasures in the tree. If I were able to give gifts to Jem and Scout through the tree, I would give them gifts that would encourage them to follow their dreams and make them happy.

Jem and Scout, throughout “To Kill A Mockingbird,” learn to consider things from other people’s perspectives. Atticus, Jem and Scout’s father, says “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in” (Lee 39). They learn this through experiences with their neighbor Boo Radley as they mature beyond their years. At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout make fun of Boo and assume that all of the rumors going around about him are true. However, later on in the story the children grow an admiration for Boo and learn to understand him. As they matured, Jem and Scout naturally learned many life lessons of appreciation, respect, and courage

When they hear the rumors about Boo Radley they believe that he dines on “raw squirrels and any cats he could catch” and that he looks like a monster because he has, “a long jagged scar” and rotten teeth (Lee 16). The kids, having never seen him before, had many blind spots. If they had walked in his shoes and understood him they would of understood why he was always in his house and how he was not a monster. However as the story goes on they start to understand why he might be that way, Miss. Maudie tells Scout that Boo’s dad was a “foot-washing Baptist” and that “anything that’s a pleasure is a sin” (Lee 59). This helps Scout become more compassionate towards Boo and she starts to walk in his shoes. Jem also saw Mrs. Dubose as a monster. Mrs. Dubose was very mean and she was “nasty. She has fits or somethin” (Lee 143). Jem did not realize that Mrs Dubose, a morphine addict was trying to break her addiction before she died. Another blind spot Scout had was towards her teacher, Miss Caroline. Scout gave her a hard time because she did not like her, but like Atticus points out, “it was a honest mistake” and that Scout should not “hold her responsible when she knew no better” (Lee 40). In all three instances when the kids had blind spots, walking in the other person's shoes would of helped them be more

Jem refuses to admit it, but he is terrified of Boo and the horror stories that lurk around him. When Dill challenges him to knock on the doors of the Radley Place, he unsurprisingly follows through because “he loved his honor more than his head” (13). The importance of preserving his reputation and pride overpowers his fear. After the incident, Jem becomes more assertive and constantly boasts about his accomplished feat; he believes that it was an act of bravery, conquering something that no one else dared to do. Dill incessantly tests Jem’s willingness to take on new risks and the Boo Radley Game is invented. The children mock Boo in front of the entire town on a daily basis, and Jem believes he is proving a point by doing a harmless, comical thing. Atticus catches them in the action, yet “[he] hasn’t said [they] couldn’t, therefore [they] could...Jem had thought of a way around it” (41). Like most kids, Jem is brutally honest and goes off of what he hears and what is in plain sight. His doings are prompted by the innocence he still has as well as his lack of exposure to the darker sides of the world. He is unable to make higher-level connections or construct advanced ideas about his environment yet, showing that he is no more mature than the next child.

In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout narrates the novel by telling the story of how Jem broke his arm. Atticus Finch is the father of two kids, Jem and Scout, who always get into trouble and are the most mischievous and nosy kids around. Atticus is a lawyer who is in a case defending a black man named Tom Robinson, who is harmless and innocent, while the kids are always tormenting and bothering the innocent Boo Radley. Because they are innocent and harmless, but treated with suspicion, both Boo and Tom exemplify the symbol of the mockingbird in this novel. Tom Robinson is represented by a mockingbird in this story by always being innocent and never harming, but always being tormented.

He uses the tree by filling it with small items he finds in his house to communicate with the neighborhood kids. “We were walking past our tree in its knot-hole rested a ball of twine.” (Lee 66). These objects in the tree connected with Scout and Jem because the kids would take them and wait for more, they valued these small tokens of benevolence from Boo.

Lastly, Boo wants to secretly give Jem, Scout, and Dill some signs to show them that he is not afraid to communicate with them. He wants to show Scout, Jem and Dill that he is interested in learning more about them and the entire world. By doing this, Boo matures into a person who will begin to communicate and interact with the world.

When he shows that he isn 't a bad person, it shows how gossip has affected him so much that he needs to prove them wrong and show the good of his heart. Jem and Scout are fascinated and long to see Boo, but Scout is not sad when she sees that Boo isn 't freakishly large and bloody, but is glad to see a human, that might of just saved her and Jem 's life.

Throughout chapters 1-8 of To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee uses the tree with the knot-hole to impact Jem’s coming of age experience. She explains that Jem and Scout find gifts like: gum, coins, twine, and other things in the knot-hole of the tree, which represent articles that help Jem come of age. It has been previously presumed that it is most likely Boo Radley leaving these gifts for Jem and Scout. Because of Boo’s reputation this is hard to believe, but it shows that Boo is not as he seems to be. As proof, Lee quotes Jem asking Scout “‘You reckon we oughta write a letter to whoever’s leaving us these things?’” (Lee 81). This shows that Boo himself is different than he used to be as a kid, he is trying to be friendly towards Jem and Scout. It also shows that Jem is thankful for the gifts and that his impression of Boo is gradually changing. Similarly, Boo’s actions help to disprove the negative rumors about him. To further

At first Scout thinks that this may be someone’s hiding place but, as the novel goes on Scout and her brother Jem find many things in the tree including: 1. A piece of chewing gum 2. Two Indian-heads 3. Some Gray Twine 4. Two Soap figures carved in scout's and Jem's shape. 5. A pack of gum 6. A spelling bee medal 7. A pocket watch. 8. An aluminum knife. As you can see Scout and Jem find a mixture of different things. It is clearly not someone’s hiding place because if their stuff kept disappearing they would definitely find a different hiding place. Jem realizes it is Boo who is leaving these things. To make the soap carvings of the children, the person would have to know what the kids look like and have a lot of time on their hands, which Boo does. One day Mr. Nathan Radley, Boo’s brother who returned to the Radley house after their father died, fills the hole with cement. When Jem asks Mr. Radley why he did this he tells him the tree is dying. Jem and Scout very upset by this:

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” (Lee 149).

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).

This quote aligns perfectly with all of the trouble that Jem and Scout have recently gotten into. This trouble includes missing things and taking things from strange places. Since Jem and Scout were standing right in front of the Radley’s house on the night of the fire, everyone automatically thinks that Boo was the person who put the blanket around Scout. They think that she was just too busy looking at the fire to notice that someone had put a blanket around her. This quote is significant because even though Jem and Scout fear Boo, in reality he is actually trying to protect them. Jem and Scout believe that Boo never comes out of his house, but here he comes out of the house to protect them. They really want to see him but what is ironic is that they were so close to him and didn’t even realize it.

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

Next, Scout and Jem learn how to have empathy for those who are misunderstood. Scout and Jem learn this through experiences with Boo Radley. Everyone in Macomb makes Boo out to be a mysterious and extremely dangerous, animal-like individual. The kids hear new rumors daily about Boo, and they begin to get curious. Scout, Jem and Dill all try to spy on Boo. They are determined to get him to come out of his house so that they can see the monster that everyone claims he is. Atticus soon catches on to what the kids are doing. He tells the kids that they need to leave Boo alone. What they hear about Boo