To Kill A Mockingbird Dialectical Journal

I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and I am on page 42. So far this book is about a girl, named Scout, her brother Jem, and in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. In this journal I will be predicting and evaluating. I predict that the kids will not meet Boo Radley. Nobody in town has seen Boo in years, since he was locked up in the courthouse basement and Mr. Radley promised to keep him out of sight. The doors of the Radley house have been closed ever since Boo was sent, with his ‘gang’, to the state industrial school for their bad behavior. Even after he got out, he was sent to the courthouse for even worse bad behavior. After his father died and his brother came to take care of him, he continued to imprison himself in his house.

All of Boo’s mishaps happened before the children were even born and he was locked up when they were young. The kids are also very scared of Boo even though they have never seen him. The things they have heard about him are enough to give them nightmares for the rest of their lives. The children were greatly warned about the dangers of the Radley house. People described Boo as a malevolent phantom and say that he went out at night when it was pitch black and peeped in people’s windows. They said that people's flowers would freeze in a cold snap from his breath and that any crimes committed in Maycomb were his doing. Boo’s father was almost as mean and nasty’s him. Boo once drove scissors into his father’s leg and acted like nothing happened a second later. He was a part of a group, that was the closest thing to a gang you could find in Maycomb. The gang did all kinds of horrible things and caused havoc all over town. Boo was, supposedly, six-and-a-half feet tall and liked to dine on raw squirrels, that is why he had bloodstained hands. He had a long jagged scar across his face and rotten yellow

His teacher had to make him go home and shower because he was so dirty. Scout describes him as being the filthiest human being she has ever seen. His neck, face, and hands were discolored by dirt, and his fingernails were black. Burris was obviously used to the filth because he did not show any interest when he picked the bugs out of his hair. Burris not only brought his filth to the first day of school, but also his mean, unforgiving attitude. He showed no mercy to the new teacher, Mrs. Caroline. She told him to go home and wash himself, and even offered a homemade remedy to him, but he refused and said that he will not be back anyway. All of the students were very adamant that Miss Caroline did not start anything with him because he would surely throw in right back at her. Burris made sure not to leave the school without saying some not-so-nice words to Miss Caroline, which included calling her a “snot-nosed slut of a school teacher” (Lee 37). Burris was a clear reflection of the Ewell family. His family was incredibly dysfunctional and different from every family in Maycomb. They do not have a mother and their father is a very mean man. There are Ewells all over town and they are all related in some