To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is a story about inequality, injustice and racism seen through the eyes of two innocent children, Jem and Scout. Jem and Scout live in Maycomb, Alabama and learn these sad lessons through their relationships with their father Atticus, their maid Calpurnia, their mysterious neighbor Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused of a terrible crime. Through their relationship with Boo and Tom, Jem and Scout learn about racism and inequality that changes how they see the world. Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are two different people who share similar struggles with inequality throughout this story. Boo and Tom experience a form of racism and discrimination. Boo is discriminated against because his …show more content…
Boo is “mentally challenged”. This handicap keeps him from being able to read, write speak properly. This handicap forces him to live with his emotionally abusive parents. This handicap makes him even more “different” than other men in society. Him hiding away makes people think he’s evil and scary. “Every night sound I heard from my cot on the back porch was magnified threefold; every scratch of feet on gravel was Boo Radley seeking revenge…” Tom has a physical handicap. He is unable to use his left hand. This handicap forces him to work even harder to take care of his family. These handicaps cause more damage by how the townspeople view them. Both Boo and Tom are very compassionate and caring men. Because Boo cares so much for Jem and Scout, he risks his life to save theirs. He comes out of his home which is very hard for him and fights Bob Ewell who has a knife to make sure Jem and Scout stay safe. Tom is also a caring man. He knew he should not help Mayella but his concern for her happiness was more important than the potential consequences. “I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella.” Both men risked their lives to help
They assign characteristics to Boo without any purpose but entertainment and peculiarness; they want to see Boo not as their neighbor, but as an ugly, twisted, mutant, with a taste for eating rodents and cats. Watching the injustice that Tom suffers from being a black man in a white world helps the children understand why Boo may choose to be a recluse. " Scout, 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."
In the book, Heck Tate says, “To my way of thinkin’, Mr. Finch, taking the one man who’s done you and this town a great service an’ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight-to me, that’s a sin” (Lee 369-370). In this quote, Heck Tate explains that Boo has done a great service for the town and he implies that Boo is not confined to his house; Boo is simply very shy. Boo proves himself a hero when he saves Jem and Scout. By saving Jem and Scout, Boo proved that he is not the psychotic delinquent that they thought he was; he is simply a shy, but heroic,
Miss Maudie tells Scout that Miss Stephanie is only lying about seeing Boo outside her window. The only other event where Boo was bad was when he was with his “gang” and he was still punished by his father for his actions. Another reason Boo is shown as the mockingbird of the book is because he has only hurt one person. The only person that Boo has hurt was his father and that is still just a rumor. When Boo stabbed his father with the scissors his father punished him and did not let him go without consequences.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel about the child hood of a young girl named Jean Louise Finch. It is about the struggles she faced growing up with racial circumstances in the Southern United States. She is often her referred to as Scout Finch through the novel. Scout lives with her brother Jem and their father Atticus in the town of Maycomb, Alabama. Maycomb is a small town where everybody knows everybody.
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.
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, is about the lives of Scout and her brother, Jem Finch, who are growing up in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930’s. Along with their summer friend, Dill, the children become fascinated with the idea of getting a glimpse of their mysterious unseen neighbour, Boo Radley. Meanwhile, Jem and Scout’s attorney father, Atticus Finch, has decided
The setting of the story is Maycomb County Alabama during the 1930s, a time when racism was at its strongest. The main characters who symbolize the mockingbird are Tom, Boo, and Jem. These characters are innocent people who have been injured or destroyed through contact with evil. Lee portrays innocence in many ways. Innocence can mean freedom from guilt
If not for the major characters, the minor characters have played an equally important role in Maycomb with their contrasting views. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is mainly about Jem and Scout growing up under the difficult situations created in Alabama during The Great Depression. Stereotypes and discrimination are major problems in Maycomb. Scout and Jem Finch are raised by Atticus, with the help of Calpurnia, their maid. In the first part of the book, Scout, Jem and Dill are fascinated by Boo Radley because of the rumors they hear about him, and they try everything to make him come out of his house.
The first time the novel introduces Boo, it is easy to tell right away that people do not treat him the same as everyone else because they treat him as a monster or non-human. The first time that it is very clear that Boo is not treated as any other person is a quote that comes from Jem in Chapter 1, “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…” (Lee 13). This helps display that people treat Boo like a monster. Jem describes him as being a person that catches cats and squirrels to eat which helps support that he thinks Boo is a monster.
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about two kids, Jem and Scout, and their childhood in their small town Maycomb, Alabama. In the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout were two innocent kids playing in the summer sun, until school came along. Jem was about twelve throughout the novel and Scout was eight, and considering that Jem was twelve in the novel, he was changing. During the middle of the novel a rape trial occurred, which included a black man being accused by a white woman of first-degree rape. Atticus, the kid’s father was defending the african american man; Tom Robinson.
Overtime, Scout realizes that they are just disrupting Boo, and decides to stop trying to lure him outside. She almost completely forgets about Boo, until he saves both her and Jem from Mr. Ewell who was attacking them. When Scout first saw Boo, she teared up, since she only fantasized about that very moment. Curiosity struck Scout and her
To kill a Mockingbird is like killing innocents for making others happy. Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, and Boo Radley all face poor treatment, Tom and Boo get pre-judged, because of their background, and Atticus faces prejudice in Maycomb because he is defending Tom Robinson. They all symbolize a Mockingbird, they have not done anything wrong, but attempt to help others, but society does not view this image. Citizens of Maycomb just view a black man commit a crime, a man who prefers to stay in his home then say it is strange for doing so, then see a white man who wishes to get the truth out so Tom Robinson can be free, and not be jailed for a crime he did not commit. All of them just want to help people, but the people of Maycomb do not see
Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” is set sometime in the 1930s in Maycomb County Alabama. The story is told through the point of view of Scout Finch who lives with her father, Atticus, and brother, Jem. The kids like to play pretend with their friend Dill about the man who lives in a scary house down the road, Boo Radley. The kids come in a few close counters along the way during these games in which Atticus does not approve. Scouts’ father, a lawyer, is appointed by Judge Taylor to defend Mr. Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a young girl.
The Co-existence Of Good and Evil In Human Morality: To Kill A Mockingbird Analysis Essay Set in the rural southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, To Kill A Mockingbird is seen through the eyes of Scout Finch and her older brother Jem, Maycomb appears to be friendly and peaceful. However the children are exposed to the dangers and the truth of their community. As they mature and learn important lessons from others, they’re exposed to prejudice, inequality, racism, social class and injustice.
After witnessing Jem, Scout, and Dill acting out his rumored “life story”, I infer that it must have been very weird and uncomfortable for Boo to be so close to “his children” when they were the ones who supposedly made fun of him. Emotionally he is struggling because he is overwhelmed by the fact that he is always a hot topic of the town, and the trio acting his story out didn’t make him feel any better. In the poem “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou the last stanza is written “The caged bird sings/ with a fearful trill/ of things unknown/ but longed for still/and his tune is heard/ on the distant hill/ for the caged bird/sings of freedom.” Boo Radley