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The Theme Of Childhood In To Kill A Mockingbird, By Harper Lee

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Recommended: Boo radley characterization to kill a mockingbird pg 10-12

Everyone, at one point in their lives, has to reach the monumental threshold between childhood and adulthood. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird highlights this threshold, where our protagonists navigate through their everyday lives in Maycomb County. Through this, Jem, Scout, and Dill open their eyes to their childhood world of youth and prejudice when exploring their relationship with Boo Radley. Boo Radley was once an infamous neighborhood legend to the children. The small community of Maycomb consists of close-knit relationships between every citizen. The main characters, Jem and Scout, are free to play in their neighborhood with one restriction: leaving the Radley house alone. “Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom.” (Lee, Page 9) The children grew up with the neighborhood horror stories of Boo Radley. It wasn’t until Dill arrived that their curiosity of the outcast blossomed. The children, at the beginning of the novel, saw Boo Radley as just an object of their summer fun. In their childhood world, he was a character, an evil force that they wanted to reckon …show more content…

Jem, Scout, and Dill, while they were having their fun with their games, started to grow bolder. They actively tried to reach out to Boo. One night, Jem and Dill decide to send him a note, planning to deliver it with a fishing pole through Boo's window. “We’re asking him real politely to come out and tell us what he does in there. We said we wouldn’t hurt him and we’d buy him ice cream.” (Lee, Page 52) The children’s relationship and perception of Boo Radley changes overtime. Their once childish image of a horrible caricature changes once they start seeing him more like a trapped human being. They are able to look past the prejudicial rumors of Boo and begin to pity him for his isolation. Though their approaches in doing so are strange, the children genuinely start to care for Boo as a

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In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper E. Lee, the story of protagonist Scout and her older brother Jem unfolds in the small but talkative town of Maycomb, Alabama, where they are raised by their insightful, loving father Atticus. Over the span of a short three years with their sidekick Dill, they spend their childhood days tormenting and daydreaming about town legend Boo Radley, causing shenanigans all over town and not wasting a moment of their care-free, young lives. However, the friends’ summer fun ceases when Scout and Jem especially are faced with traumatic and influential experiences like the renowned Tom Robinson case that send them quickly down the path into young adulthood. The corruption and people of Maycomb send Jem blindly spiraling

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Reese Balaski Due Date: Tuesday 6th Journal 2 I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and I am currently on page 42. This book is about a girl named Scout and her family living in Maycomb, Alabama. In this journal, I will proceed to predict and evaluate the plot points of the book so far. One of the major topics in the story so far is Scout and her brother Jem being able to see their neighbor Boo Radley.

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The children hear from Mrs. Stephanie Crawford about her encounter with Boo Radley, claiming that she saw him look through the window at her one night, and stories like that cause Scout, Jem, and Dill to fear Boo. After listening to the Tom Robinson case and hearing about his unfortunate death, Scout and Jem begin to comprehend why Boo never comes out of his house. Jem explains to Scout, “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” (259).

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Throughout this, the story shows racial issues in the South and what it was like to grow up in the 30s while still including a fun story. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird is about the acceptance of all people, black and white or living differently than the average person. Maycomb County has a hard time accepting. This is for many reasons including the time and the ideas already set in people’s minds. This is shown in Arthur “Boo” Radley’s case.

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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.

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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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He harrases and ridicules Boo Radley for fun, revealing his youth and immaturity. However, as the novel progresses, Jem, eager to follow in his father’s

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The three kids were chatting and Dill wondered what Boo looks like so Jem describes Boo as “about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained… There was an long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most or the time.” (Lee,16) This is the result of what happens when rumors are spread, people are misjudged and sometimes avoided like how Boo is shown throughout the book until the end. Boo Radley is wrongfully judged and admonished when it is just that not many people are circumspect.

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Throughout the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” written by Harper Lee, the readers can see how Scout changes her view about Boo Radley. Because of their nosiness, Jem, Scout, and Dill try to drag Boo out his house and to the outside world. Their innocent actions combined with Boo’s actions changed the image of Boo, in their minds, from “a malevolent phantom” (10), a person who kills cats and eats squirrels to a neighbor they can trust, who saves them from Bob Ewell. Scout says at the end, “Boo was our neighbor” (373). The readers can see a great change in their relationship.

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To them, so much as entering the front yard of the Radley house is a terrifying feat. At this time, the children do not understand Boo’s situation, as they have yet to meet him and know little about him apart from the stories. As the book progresses, the children’s fear morphs into curiosity. They want nothing more than to catch a glimpse

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To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is a story about inequality, injustice and racism seen through the eyes of two innocent children, Jem and Scout. Jem and Scout live in Maycomb, Alabama and learn these sad lessons through their relationships with their father Atticus, their maid Calpurnia, their mysterious neighbor Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused of a terrible crime. Through their relationship with Boo and Tom, Jem and Scout learn about racism and inequality that changes how they see the world. Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are two different people who share similar struggles with inequality throughout this story. Boo and Tom experience a form of racism and discrimination.

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John B. Cobb Jr.’s Ideas of the Christian God             In John B. Cobb Jr.’s essay, he writes about his theology of the doctrine of God. The essay's second section goes over “What Christians Believe about God.” Cobb highlights the importance of worship in the Christian faith. He talks about how worship is centered around love and grace.

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In Dill’s first summer in Maycomb, Jem tells him the story of Boo Radley. Dill becomes very curious of the monster that Jem describes, and Dill decides that they should get Boo to come out of his house. They try many different tactics, but each time they are reprimanded by Atticus when they get caught. It’s not until much later in the book that they all learn why they should just leave Boo alone. During Dill’s second summer of the novel, Dill runs away from home because he misses Scout.

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" This shows that Boo Radley is the in a way “outside character”. He can sense that there are many horrors of the world destroying the innocence, or the mockingbird in this case, so he chooses to ignore

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Harper Lee and Tate Taylor contend that those who do not fit into society are misunderstood and often have different realities. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in 1935 in Maycomb, a Southern American town where everyone attends church and socialises with people within their social hierarchy. However, the Radleys isolate themselves from Maycomb by not going to church and worshipping at home. Furthermore, the Radley’s house doors and shutters are always closed, which is “another thing alien to Maycomb’s ways.” As a result, the Radley’s do not fit into Maycomb societal standards.

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