“Do not judge my story by the chapter that you walked in on.” Nobody knows who wrote this quote however it is very good nonetheless. This quote shows that one should not judge another without first learning about their past and holds great significance in the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird. More specifically this pertains to Boo Radley. Over the course of To Kill a Mocking Brid Boo is seen as a maniac but as the story progresses the readers view of him changes from a crazed psychopath to simply a misunderstood boy. In the beginning of the story Boo is seen as crazed psychopath who eats cats and spies on people at night. This is first shown as Jem describes how Boo Radley looks to Dill and Scout while they are talking about Boo and what he does …show more content…
After Jem first witnesses the racial injustice in Tom Robinsons trial, he comes to an understanding of why he thinks Boo is always inside. During the conversation between Jem and Scout, Jem says “I think I’m beginning to understand something. 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.” (304) Jem realizes that with all the hate in the world Boo probably stays inside to avoid all of that and just wants some peace. At this point the readers view on Boo Radley has change from a psychopathic mad man to a kind boy who secretly cares for Jem and Scout. The next and final change in the readers view of Boo happen when he finally come outside of his house and openly meet the children for the first time in the story. This happens at the very end of the book when Jem and Scout are walking back for a school play and are attacked by Bob Ewell. During the attack the two children are saved by a mysterious figure in the night and Jem (who was knocked unconscious) is carried back to the house. After Scout makes it back Atticus asks her what happened, and she tells him about how they were attacked and someone saved them and brought Jem back. Now in the room with Jem on the Bed Atticus asks Scout who carried Jem back and she point behind the door to where Boo Radley is seen standing there. In this moment the reader realizes that Boo is not mean or scary in any way and is just a man who is misunderstood by
Boo does this because he enjoys watching the kids as they walk home and play outside in front of his house. Essentially, Mr. Radley is portrayed as a scary man where Jem and Scout satirize Boo due to his fearful image. However, they discover how they have treated a wonderful man appallingly. Boo is essentially a mockingbird, and Scout eventually figures
Boo Radley is a very quiet man who got into trouble with the law at a young age and has stayed inside his house since. Around town, he is seen as a bad man who is very weird for staying inside his house, and rumors about him are everywhere. Scout and Jem hear about this and are very interested about this, so they go and mess around at his house. Even with all these people thinking he is a weird, crazy person, Boo Radley is still a great person. When there was a fire, the kids were outside when it was cold, and Boo Radley was nice enough to wrap a blanket around Scout.
The townspeople thought Boo was an evil man who caused trouble around the neighborhood because of his past experiences as a child. Boo opens up to Jem and Scout throughout the novel and they see he is really a lonely, caring man in need of a friend. Boo was known as the towns troublemaker and had a bad reputation, many people were scared of him. " Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom people said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People say he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped and windows.
“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 it” is one of Harper Lee’s most memorable lines from To Kill a Mockingbird (39). The reason why is because its lesson is found throughout the story in the most unexpected ways. This theory is taught to the characters Jem and Scout through others such as Boo Radley. This is why Boo is a catalyst through which Jem and Scout are able to learn empathy from the rumors circulating around him, a surprising night, and gifts.
Immediately from the outset of the novel, Scout and Dill and the other kids in the neighborhood judge Boo Radley and imagine that he is some sort of “monster” or “boogeyman” just because he is different and does not come out much in public. Just based on what they have heard or imagine about Boo, Scout races past his house as if her life depended on it. She did not take the time to get to know him at all until he saved her life at the end of the story when Authur “Boo” Radley saves her land Jem’s lives does Scout see him as a human being and realize that he is actually a good guy. In the end, Scout even likens Boo to the “mockingbird” that her father told her it was a sin to kill because it hurts no one when she hugs her dad and thanks him
Jem has been influenced by rumors of Boo Radley and believed Boo was a monster. However, Jem loses all of these prejudices when he accepts the gifts that are left in the knothole by Boo. As a result he begins to believe Boo is a kind person and even admits that “... he[Boo] ain’t ever harmed us, he ain’t ever hurt us…”(96). Feeling like Boo is seeking attention, Jem attempts to give him a note to ease his loneliness. Jem continues to … Feeling worried for Atticus, Jem decides to leave Atticus alone so that he can focus on the Tom Robinson case.
Additionally, Scout and Jem spend much of their time tormenting a poor, misunderstood Boo Radley simply because of the stories they heard about him. Harper Lee, through the characterization of Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, asserts that prejudice creates a blind spot in one’s moral righteousness. At first, Boo Radley is presented as a horrible and
Boo Radley inclosed in his home had led to speculations of curiosity to Scout and Jem, which they try to pry out Boo from being silenced. As a protector of Scout and Jem, Boo steps away from the darkness to save Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell. Lee creates the vanity in Boo’s appearance as valiant, redemption in the understanding of one's true self. Sheriff Tate dicates sin on Boo’s actions of killing Mr. Ewell in which Boo has “dragg[ed]’ him[self] with his shy ways into the limelight” only to save a soul of innocence “that’s a sin.” Boo’s actions had defined his myth in being a man of sin, and he had led himself back into his enclosure away in the
Boo saved Scout and Jem, but he also killed Bob Ewell in the process. Atticus, Jem and Scouts father, asked the sheriff what really happened, but the sheriff insisted that Boo didn't do anything. Scout understood it and said that it'd be like shooting a mockingbird, because Boo only sought to protect those children and having him arrested would be a sin. Boo Radley was displayed as an innocent man who was wrongly incarcerated by his father after a childish prank he played on him, but his father did not think of it as a childish prank. Boo’s innocence can be seen when he leaves gifts for Jem and Scout in the tree knot hole.
In chapter 28, it states that as Jem and Scout were being attacked someone came out and pulled of Bob Ewell from them. That person was Boo Radley, Boo had taken Jem and ran him home. This shows that Boo didn't care that he was going to be seen he just wanted to save Jem and make sure Jem and Scout were safe. This also shows how he had his stage of coming of age because he didn't care that he was going to be seen he just stepped up and faced it head on.
Boo shows heroism when he saves Jem and Scout from being killed by Bob Ewell. Jem and Scout were walking home from the pageant and Jem got the feeling that they were being followed. Then someone attacked them and broke Jem’s arm and knocked him unconscious, and then he proceeded to attempt and kill Scout, but someone else pulled him off of her. Scout later realizes that the man standing against the wall of Jem’s room was Mr. Arthur (Boo) Radley. Boo had courage leaving his house, which he had been locked up in for a very long time, to help Jem and Scout and finally reveal himself to them.
In the story Boo Radley plays the role of Scout and Jem’s guardian angel. He watches over them and helps them when they get into trouble. In the first chapters, the kids make fun of Boo, they taunt him. All they know about him is what they have heard, that he is a crazy man. Throughout the story though, Boo proves them wrong.
" This shows that Boo Radley is the in a way “outside character”. He can sense that there are many horrors of the world destroying the innocence, or the mockingbird in this case, so he chooses to ignore
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.” Little do they know that Boo Radley will play a huge part in their survival at the end of the book when the crazy Bob Ewell Attacks them and Boo Radley protected them, something that Jem and scout would’ve never imagined, But something that the reader could foreshadow. Due to Boo’s acts of kindness like when he returned Jem’s pants sowed after he got them caught on the barb wire fence while he was snooping and around and also the gifts he left in the knot of the tree that helped him build a deeper sentimental relationship with Jem and Scout even if the kids did not know it. Boo had built such a relationship with them that he had done something extremely courageous and protects Jem and scout from Bob
Boo Radley taught them, in the sense, that you can’t Judge a book by its cover. At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout pictured Boo to be this “...malevolent Phantom (Lee 10).” that went out at night and looked through people’s windows. But after leaving them gifts in the tree and putting a blanket on Scout while she was standing out in the cold, Jem’s and Scout’s Perception of him began to evolve from a monster to a person.