To Kill A Mockingbird Essay

803 Words4 Pages

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the narrator and main character, Scout, along with her brother, Jem are two children living during the times of the great depression who encounter many obstacles through their life. One of the many obstacles the children faced was changes in their mindset, specifically, maturity. Scout and Jem's maturity caused a change of opinion about an infamous character, Boo Radley. The children went from fearing Boo Radley to appreciating and creating a close bond with him. Their opinion changes can be found first in the beginning when Jem describes Boo Radley negatively. Scout then thinks about Boo Radley's gestures of kindness. Then, lastly, after reading a story, Scout connected her story to Boo …show more content…

In the earlier section of the story, Scout asked Jem to describe Boo Radley, and Jem describes him by using what he heard around the town of Maycomb. To describe Boo Radley, on page 14, Jem said, “Boo was 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 blood stained- if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off.” In this quote, Jem describes Boo as a savage monster who fed on dead animals such as squirrels, cats, and other small creatures. This quote clearly proved that the children’s opinion had changed on Boo Radley because, initially, they had feared him and treated him like a non- human creature which they had learned later was very …show more content…

After Atticus read Scout a story titled, "The Gray Ghost" which was supposedly about a ghost who was misunderstood before people saw him, Scout connected this to Boo Radley's life. Scout stated this connection on pages 322 and 323 saying, " An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things…Atticus, he was real nice…" In this quote, Scout explained that the main character of the story was misunderstood, misjudged, and treated poorly before anybody saw him, this can be interpreted as connecting the story to Boo Radley. Evidently, this proves that their opinion has changed on Boo Radley because, compared to the beginning of the book, and through encounters with Boo Radley, she concludes by connecting the events of Maycomb to her book that Boo Radley is a very kind person who is just misunderstood by