Similarities Between Boo Radley And To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee. The novel is set in the 1930s in Maycomb County, Alabama. In the novel, the mockingbird is a symbol of innocence and killing one would be to unnecessarily persecute someone or something. Atticus explains to his children “It is a sin to kill a mockingbird”(119). Calpurnia jumps in “Your father’s right, Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy”. They don’t eat up people's gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”(119). Similar to shooting a mockingbird, there are innocent people in Maycomb who are persecuted for no reason. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley were persecuted in significant ways that altered their entire lives.

Although Boo was not killed, he was still persecuted by the town, banished into his own home. In the beginning of the novel, Scout explains that there is no evidence showing that Boo deserved to be locked up in his house. “Nobody in Maycomb had nerve enough to tell Mr.Radley that his boy was in with the wrong crowd”(12). Jem is the mockingbird in this novel. You notice this for the first time in chapter 7. Jem learns that adults can actually be misleading and dishonest to other adults and children. After Jem and Scout receive several small gifts in the knothole of the Radley Tree, he suspects that it is Boo Radley who is leaving them for the children. Jem and Scout write Boo a letter and attempt to place it in the knothole of the tree, only to see it filled with cement. Jem asks Nathan Radley why he filled the knothole with cement, and Nathan lies to Jem. Telling him that the tree is sick. Later, Jem asks Atticus about the tree's health and discovers Nathan has lied to him. Jem lost his innocence, realizing that adults can be dishonest and lie as