The Unseen Influence of Boo Radley

634 Words2 Pages

Arthur “Boo” Radley appears only once in the novel, yet is discussed frequently by Jem, Scout, and Dill. Their imaginations run wild with ideas of a scissor wielding maniac who peeks in town windows and dines on raw squirrels. As they mature they start to forget about him, leaving their childish stories behind with the rest of their innocent ideas. However, Boo never stops noticing them: It was daytime and the neighborhood was busy. Miss Stephanie Crawford crossed the street to tell the latest to Miss Rachel. Miss Maudie bent over her azaleas. It was summertime, and two children scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance. The man waved, and the children raced each other to him. It was still summertime, and …show more content…

He couldn’t have mentally matured just sitting around the house all day, never interacting with others his age or gaining life experiences. Now an adult, he stills stays in the house all day, even though after the death of his father there's nothing keeping him there. As Jem concludes, “... it’s because he wants to stay inside” (Lee 304). Why? As Jem is starting to understand, there is evil in the word. Boo’s naive thoughts let him see the immorality that others have become insensitive to, even as an adult. This is why he still stays inside all the …show more content…

Scout’s ideas of him reflect her maturity as she grows throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, he is imagined as six and a half feet tall with bloodstained hands from the animals he caught before eating raw. He also had a jagged scar that ran across his face, the few teeth he had were rotten, and his eyes popped. Then, after trials and triumphs, tears and laughter, Scout sees him as he really is; a gaunt, timid figure; the complete opposite of the monster she had imagined. Her mental picture of Boo shows how she develops throughout the course of the

Open Document