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Anxiety Disorders In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

1104 Words5 Pages

Over 265,000,000 people suffer from various anxiety disorders globally, and in this category stands Arthur “Boo” Radley. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout experiences racism, loss of innocence, and more while growing up in the small town of Maycomb County. Boo Radley is a reclusive character who lives across the street from Scout, known for never leaving his house. (INTRO TO EVIDENCE 1,2,3) Disenfranchisement is defined as the state of being deprived of a right or privilege, especially the right to vote. People can be disenfranchised from society by rumors, which can lead to social anxiety or agoraphobia, as well as stereotypes that lead to complete isolation to avoid social interaction and judgment, which is also seen throughout …show more content…

Britannica Scholar proves, “Many agoraphobic patients also experience panic attacks. These individuals often are afraid of having a panic attack in a public place, which they perceive as embarrassing, or of having a panic attack in a location distant from their physician or medical clinic or where affecting medical care might be difficult (...). At its most severe, agoraphobia can cause the sufferer to become housebound” (Agoraphobia). Panic attacks, fear of embarrassment, and isolation are all symptoms of anxiety disorders (Agoraphobia), but the information above specifically states the symptoms of a patient who suffers from agoraphobia. Boo Radley relates almost perfectly to this disorder because he is known to be housebound. This consistent isolation is proven to be a symptom of severe cases of Agoraphobia. The intense fear of public areas and panic attacks can lead to this isolation due to taking extreme measures to prevent embarrassment (Agoraphobia). This characterizes Boo Radley very well, because leaving his house is something he has never been seen doing, exactly how society would view an agoraphobe. This intense fear of public areas forces Boo to lose his rights and become disenfranchised. Society is to blame for his disenfranchisement, because it is the amount of rumors and stories that have led Boo to develop such a severe anxiety

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When he was a teenager him and his friends would drink, get in trouble, and more, but nobody had the nerve to tell Mr. Radley that his son was in with the wrong crowd, because he was not the socializing type either. He was in this gang with his friends that’s how they got away with a lot of crimes because everyone was scared of them. The whole family is pretty much on lockdown, no one ever sees them and if they did not like they would want to talk to that family anyways, because everyone was scared of them. The kids are scared of Boo because the house looks really mysterious; the doors are always shut, even on Sundays when everyone else’s doors and windows are open. They are also cared of the way he looks and all the stuff they suspect he does, like they think that he looks in other people’s windows at night but they do not know for sure.

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911 Words | 4 Pages

Later in the book we find out this fear that the reader, the town, and even Jem and Scout had about Boo was not what we all have imagined, we thought Boo was going to be some dark cave man guy but he turns out to be a very kind man that just wanted to play and enjoy life, but he was locked up in his own house for so many years. If we were to look at all of this from a different angle let’s say that the Radley house was pink with a lot of lovely, incredible flowers outlining the upright porch. Every day the sun would shine through the oak tree and hit the house at the perfect angle, and what if the book said the house seemed to be cozy and warm. Most of us would picture a peaceful man living life to the fullest.

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1053 Words | 5 Pages

Symptoms such unable to express one’s feeling because of fear, or someone having recurring nightmares that make a person scream while sleeping are strong evidence of symptoms mental disorders. These mental disorders are diagnosed with millions of people around the globe yearly. These mental disorders could be developed over years, therefore, they should be treated and not to be left

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621 Words | 3 Pages

There is a strange story that Boo was sitting in the living room, and when his parents came in the room he stabbed scissors into their leg. When the police showed up, Mrs. Radley was sitting in the living room perfectly fine. It was also told that at night Boo would be seen peering into the windows of his neighbors houses. Boo was so well known that if a negro was walking down the street, they would cross the street and under no circumstance walk past the house on the same side of the road. Boo was also part of a gang.

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862 Words | 4 Pages

In his teens, Boo did commit a few crimes with his friends, and that was enough for his father to keep Boo away from others for the rest of his life. However, Boo was not an inherently evil person as his father seemed to think he was, saving Jem and Scout and even trying to talk politely with ladies like Miss Maudie when he was younger. He was never given a chance to redeem himself, which was probably one of the things that made the Radley house so sad. In the end, Boo would never be seen outside again, but if Boo Radley was treated justly he might have never become a recluse and could have lived comfortably around

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563 Words | 3 Pages

Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley is another character in the novel who had his rights denied. Arthur’s father does not allow Boo to leave the house during his teenage years, because in his teenage years he had caused trouble in Maycomb. The judge told his parents that he should be sent off to the state industrial school, but Boo’s dad said he would give him his own punishment. People who suffer from this are Jem,Scout and Dill, They suffer from this because they are told to stay away from the Radley’s home. “It is a scary place, though,ain’t it?”(Lee 341) “Boo doesn’t mean anybody any harm” (Lee

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1109 Words | 5 Pages

After getting in trouble for typical rebellious adolescent behavior, Boo Radley has rarely been seen outside of his house. The mystery surrounding him makes others in the town intrigued about the “malevolent phantom” that “went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows” (Lee 10-11). Due to a combination of children’s imaginations and the variety of rumors spread throughout the town, people assumed Boo Radley was “about six-and-a-half feet tall” with “a long jagged scar that ran across his face” and “what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time” (Lee 16). The people of Maycomb were not accustomed to people who differed from them in any way and any minor difference could make them an outcast. When “The shutters and doors of the Radley house were closed on Sundays, another thing alien to Maycomb’s ways”, it was recognized as unusual and it further enhanced the beliefs that Boo Radley was a ‘monster’.

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1211 Words | 5 Pages

In the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo Radley was the most prominent character that fit the outsider archetype because of the stigma against mental illness. The community of Maycomb demonise him and label him insane, constructing an image of him as being huge and menacing and evil; Jem, a young boy says to his friend Dill describing Boo, “He’s about six and a half feet tall. He eats raw squirrels and all the cats he can catch. There’s a long, jagged scar that runs all the way across his face. His teeth are yellow and rotten.

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1442 Words | 6 Pages

Mr. Radley isolates Boo from the outside world, so Boo, at the age of thirty-three, stabs Mr. Radley in the leg with a pair of scissors. Again, Mr. Radley prefers confining Boo to the courthouse basement than accept that “Boo wasn’t crazy, he was high-strung” (11). Mr. Radley saves the family reputation by preventing Boo’s incarceration, but the time Boo spends locked up in his own home makes Boo unhinged. When rumors about Boo’s attack circulate Maycomb, they turn a blind eye to “what [is happening in Boo’s house] behind closed doors” despite knowing Mr. Radley is “the meanest man God blew breath into” by arguing that Boo is crazy, and they choose to ignore the obvious emotional abuse (12, 46). Society

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550 Words | 3 Pages

The subject of mental health and substance abuse is a matter that should not be taken lightly. I feel I have the right approach to this topic, due to the injustices I have seen firsthand and even experienced to some degree. This topic is brought to light in discrete moments throughout To Kill a Mockingbird. Dolphus Raymond is one of the prime examples of the prejudice people under the influence face. Although Raymond was sober, he led the town to believe that he was addicted to alcohol and he soon became the town “drunkard.”

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977 Words | 4 Pages

Boo Radley had been kept in isolation for so long, he didn’t know how to communicate or socialise properly. He has been misunderstood as a malevolent person, when he actually is a benevolent person. He displays this when he put a blanket around Scout, whilst she and Jem watched the fire. As readers, we are shown social prejudice by the assumptions made about the Radley’s. Another example of social prejudice is the

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1630 Words | 7 Pages

In To Kill A Mockingbird Boo Radley is a man who always stays shut up inside of his house which causes many rumors about him to be spread around the town. For instance, at the end of chapter 14 it’s stated “Dill?”/ “Mm?”/ “Why do you reckon Boo Radley’s never run off?”/ Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me./ “Maybe he doesn 't have anywhere to run off to…” This shows how Boo Radley is emotionally struggling because people always are assuming things about him that can cause him to feel uncomfortable around others. At the end of the book Boo Radley acts afraid of everything like when it says “Will You take me home?’ He almost whispered it, in the voice of a child afraid of the dark.”

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1601 Words | 7 Pages

Disenfranchisement. A wide-spread problem that has plagued humanity from the earliest of days. Disenfranchisement means the state of being deprived of a right or privilege, especially the right to vote. From 1100 BC and on people, especially minorities, have had their rights taken away by the more dominant race, religion, or gender. The most specifically remembered case of disenfranchisement was in America from 1870-1965, trying to keep freed black slaves from going to the poll.

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434 Words | 2 Pages

¨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" (Lee 304). Atticus is being shamed in the town of Maycomb and Jem learns more about the people and how they talk about each other. In the town he hears and sees how rude people are so he understands why Boo would not want to come out. He notices that Boo Radley does not want to deal with all the racism and prejudice.

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411 Words | 2 Pages

Boo Radley who “was not seen again for fifteen years”, is the most misunderstood person in Maycomb. His childhood mistakes marginalise him from society by a “form of intimidation Mr Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight.” To elaborate, Boo did not intend to separate himself and be perceived as a “malevolent phantom.” In truth, Boo is intensely lonely and wants to befriend the children in which he saves their lives. Similarly, in The

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