What Does The Radley Place Symbolize In To Kill A Mockingbird

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In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout is the Narrator and the story depicts her life as she is growing up. One of the first points Harper Lee made when writing the book is Scout and Jem's boundaries, they were “Mrs.Henry Lafayette Dubose’s house two doors the north of us, and the Radley Place three doors to the south.” this was Scouts safe zone, and for the first few years of hers of her life, she rarely left it. Because of this she saw the Radley Place as a bad place, for example, when she rolled toward the house in a tire while playing with her brother and Dill she ran away because she was scared. This is because when she was little she saw the Radley house as the worst of the worst because she had heard stories that Boo Radley was a crazy guy that went around hurting people. For the …show more content…

Harper Lee used the Radley Place to symbolize Scouts innocence and that she was losing it. On the first day of school, she had encountered Children that were older and that she didn't normally associate with, and she saw how differently they acted. She learned a few things about them, like the Ewell family was not in high standings with the law, and that the cunninghams were good people that didn't have as much as she did. Then, on the way home it was the first time that she had a different view of the Radley Place. She would normally run past it, but when coming home, she was thinking, “When I past the Radley Place for the fourth time that day --- twice at a full gallop --- my gloom had deepened to match the house”. She didn't run because for the first time the gloom of the outside world was matching or overshadowing the scariness of the Radley Place. Later that year Scout has an encounter with Boo Radley and finds gum in a tree that belongs to the Radleys and she isn't afraid to take

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