Boo Radley

People view the Radley house and its inhabitants as suspicious.
1. The fact that everything on the Radley place was poison having slipped Jem's memory."
2. They have this view because they form outside the norms of Maycomb respectability.
  1. They don't go to church on a Sunday, they keep themselves to themselves and never tend to socialise with their neighbours.
3. Just because they don't follow everything all other citizens in Maycomb do, they are automatically percieved as unnatural and people to be cautious of."
Described as a "malevolant phantom."
1. Boo was put under house arrest by his father as he was involved with a gang and he stole a car and resisted arrest. He was put under house arrest because his father did not want him going to reform school.
  1. When Boo's father dies, Calpurnia remarks "There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into." This surprises Scout as Calpurnia rarely commented on anything white people did.
    1. Nathan Radley continues keeping Boo under house arrest after his father's death.
  2. Boo is metaphorically speaking, made into a ghost as he doesn't take part in the everday life of Maycomb.
2. It was then rumoured Boo was seen stabbing his father in the leg with scissors.
3. Boo has been mythologised by the town of Maycomb into a monster.
Throughout the novel, Boo is shown to care for the children
1. "When I went back, they were folded across the fence"
  1. After the night where the children tried to look through the Radley window, they had to quickly escape. Whilst he was attempting to escape, Jem got his trousers caught in the Radley fence so had to leave them tangled on the fence, ripped. When he returned to retrieve them, they had been badly sewn up and were folded on the fence.
2. When Scout ends up by the Radley house after being pushed whilst rolling inside a tyre, scout says that "someone inside the house was laughing"- shows that Boo finds humour in the children.
3. When Scout is outside at the event of Miss Maudie's house fire, she falls asleep outside the Radley house. When she's asleep, Boo comes out and puts a blanket around her to stop her from getting a chill-shows Boo cares about her health and welfare.
4. Boo leaves several presents for the children in a knothole in a tree, including chewing gum, a pocket watch, two old pennies and two soap dolls carved like Jem and Scout.
  1. Nathan Radley cements up the knothole to stop Boo's contact with the outside world and children but he claims to the children it's because the tree's "dyin'"
5. The children also eventually begin to consider Boo as they mature. This is shown when they realise that the Radley game, which portrays Boo as a monster, is unfair and a misjudgment of Boo.
Ending
1. The ending of the novel seems to show Boo as being vulnerable as he asks to be walked home
2. "His face was a white as his hands, but for a shadow in his jutting chin."
  1. Vulnerable
3. “Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.”
  1. Scout appreciates what Boo's done over the years
Mockingbird- directly linked to in CH30-31
1. Boo is a victim of prejudice, just like a mockingbird.
2. Both Mockingbirds and Boo only want to make people happy.
  1. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy"
3. Does no wrong but tends to get abused by others.
4. "Well it'd sort of be like shootin' a Mockingbird, wouldn't it?"

Next up

Boo Radley

Description

Resource summary

Media attachments

Similar

	Created by megantracey over 9 years ago

	Copied by Idris Owen over 7 years ago