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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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