How Is Boo Radley Innocent

In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, we follow Scout and her opinion about growing up in Alabama in the 1930s. At the beginning of the novel, Scout is innocent and doesn’t understand racial prejudice. She learns, throughout her transformation to a lady, that maintaining the social structure of the Jim Crow laws is crucial to learn because of the effect on economic gain and reputation of the races. Adults teach children the Jim Crow laws because of the reputation they have to uphold. If children do not maintain the reputation of their race or family, people would build their own prejudices. Adults who understand how the social structure works, make their own opinions and children bring them to the school yard. Most children do not

Boo also closely relates to Tom, because Tom gets killed even though he did not rape Mayella, and Mr. Heck Tate protects Boo from the publicity of a court trial for killing Bob Ewell in defense. Atticus tells Scout and Jem when they get guns, “‘Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’”(Lee 119). Tom Robinson and Boo are as innocent as the mockingbirds. At the end of the book, as Scout leaves Boo’s porch, she understands what it’s like to stand in someone else’s shoes. Scout knows what the real evil in the world is, just like Atticus says. Plus, Dolphus Raymond says, “‘You haven’t even seen this town, but all you gotta do is step back inside the courthouse’”(Lee

African American parents teach their children the general etiquette for being around white people, “Some of them were prescribed in law; most of them existed in habits and customs that were enforced no less ruthlessly than the law”(Litwack 35). Children are taught that, “Not only would black men and women of any age find themselves in serious difficulty if they failed to extend every social courtesy to white people, young and old, and regardless of class, but black males needed to exercise the utmost vigilance in their relations with white females”(Litwack 36). African American boys are taught to barely interact or talk to white females and African American girls are told to be careful around white men. During Atticus’ final statement in the court case he brings in economics, religion, race, and he shows the white people’s power by saying, “‘And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry’ for a white woman has has to put his word against two white people’s’’’ (Lee 273). Tom says he feels bad for Mayella, and everyone in the courthouse is shocked because African American children were taught not to “feel sorry” for white people. Lee’s novel highlighted the innocence and evils of the world and society throughout it. Scout and Jem learn that every man deserves a fair trial no matter what skin color (Smiley 504). By the end of the