Examples Of Rumors In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird: Realities can be Masked by Rumors

In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the major themes resides in the fact that while people come and go, rumors last forever. Dill, one of the characters in this novel, has a sudden and profound realization which embodies this idea: "I think I'm beginning to understand something. 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" (227). Boo Radley, a prevalent, although often unseen, character in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, was no exception. Throughout the novel, rumors and lies altered the public perception of Boo Radley. Very often, these rumors propagated, as they were distorted further

They do not realize that Boo considers them as his children, and that he cares for and loves them. For example, Boo gives precious and valuable personal items to Scout and Jem as a present: "two pieces of chewing gum minus their outer wrappings" (33). Later in the story, Boo covers Scout with a blanket while she is sitting outside so she doesn't get cold, sews Jem's pants back up after they are torn, and when it comes to it, even kills for them. As Scout matures she realizes that Boo Radley was not all that she had been led to believe originally, and she starts to regret her previous assumptions: "I sometimes felt a twinge of remorse, when passing by the old place, at ever having taken part in what must have been sheer torment to Arthur Radley — what reasonable recluse wants children peeping through his shutters, delivering greetings on the end of a fishing pole, wandering in his collards at night?" (242). She has glimpsed what lies underneath the facade, and that mysterious, frightening Boo, was just an inexplicable man she should've left alone in the first

She comes face to face with Boo Radley, and learns that she had judged him too quickly — as many people had. After Scout has met Boo for the first and the last time, he asks her to walk with him back to his home. Upon reaching the porch, he disappears inside his home, leaving her with her thoughts. After consideration, she comes to the conclusion that "Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around it in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough" (279). Scout realizes that all Boo had ever done was help her and Jem. Before she had met Boo, she had no proof to contradict the rumors, so she immediately believed them — despite the fact that her father Atticus told her the rumors were false and that she should leave the poor man alone. The reality of Boo in front of her was enough to contradict the years of built up gossip and lies. In the town of Maycomb, the existing reality is easily altered by rumors that are generally accepted to be true until proven differently. Yet through a simple meeting, Scout Finch uncovered that Boo Radley was not the terrible man all the rumors had led people to believe. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the main lesson resides in the hazardous ease of believing rumors without evidence to contradict the theories. Boo Radley was simply a victim of untruthful