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What Is The Radley's House In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Recommended: Sociological imagination theory

The Radley’s house in To kill a Mockingbird: Appearance VS Reality

Whether it is now or fifty years ago, the harm of rumors is huge. Rumors can create something that does not exist and twist people’s views, which will often have terrible impact on those who are involved in it. In her novel To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee effectively employs the Radley’s house as a symbol to develop an important theme: that rumors will stop people from understanding the truth.

The way the people of Maycomb describe the Radley family existence develops the theme that rumors stop people from understanding the truth. The legend of Boo Radley is a rumour that stops people from truly knowing who he is. When Jem tells Scout about Boo, he states that, “According …show more content…

In the first part of the book, Scout and Jem are very afraid of the legend of the Radley’s house. As Scout says,"The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown entity the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end" (Lee 7). They spend their childhood trying to discover what is in the house. If there are no rumors spreading about the Radley’s house, if Scout and Jem know that the Radleys are nothing special, they will not cause so many troubles because of their curiosity. For example, they will not go sneak into the Radley’s house so they will not almost get shot by a shotgun. Jem will not lose his pants, so no one will get punished in the end. This is all because they believe the rumors, but since they are still kids, they want to find out the truth. Another legend, or ghost story that Jem tells Scout shows why rumors cover the truth. Jem told Scout that "Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people's azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work" (Lee 10). This is a big part why people do not get along with the Radleys, because they are afraid, so they do not even want to …show more content…

As a symbol, The Radley’s house, which is in the centre of rumors, shows the overview of how Maycomb, as a society, sees and believes according to what most people say. It also shows how kids like Jem and Scout are affected by those rumors since they are young. Those rumors mix up their understanding of appearance and

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In the novel, Harper writes that the windows and doors at the Radleys house are always closed. The Radleys are never seen out and about in the town, they even do church at their house. Another reason I believe this is because the kids are scared of them. Since they live in a small town, rumors spread quick. Maycombs citizens have heard that when he was 33, Boo stabbed his father in the leg with a

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A cover never does a book justice. It can either be very misleading to the reader or portray a differing feeling that he or she might expect. This is thoroughly present throughout Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Actuality differs what one sees when situations are changed, hidden, or revealed in another aspect. The full understanding of this process is found in Scout Finch’s narration of the novel when events unfold into their actual form.

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The Pulitzer Prize winning novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee portrays the life of a young girl, Scout, and her family who live together in Maycomb, Alabama circa 1930s. Scout lives next to some fascinating people that have legends and myths made about them because of their back story. One of them being Boo Radley. Boo was locked away in his house by his parents for most of his life after committing crimes that put him away for good. After the news got out about his vanishing into the Radley house forever many stories were made up about him.

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Rumors swept through the town, ruining a man’s reputation and giving him no reason to step outside of his own home. In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Arthur “Boo” Radley is the most complex of Maycomb’s residents. Many say Boo is a killer that should not be trusted near children. However, Scout thinks otherwise as she tries to understand Boo herself. She learns more than she figured, as Boo teaches her numerous lessons without even meeting her.

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Just standing on the Radley porch was enough. ”(279). Scout uses her imagination to try and view all the past events that have occurred through Boo’s eyes. When she does this she realizes that Boo isn’t a bad person at all, he is actually kind of like a guardian angel. Boo Radley’s character proves a great point that we should never judge or assume things about another person that we know nothing

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To begin, Boo Radley faces prejudice from the people in the town of Maycomb who view him as frightening and menacing. Jem, Scout, and Dill are victims of this assumption when Jem says, ‘“I hope you’ve got it through your head that

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Since Mr. Radley never came out of the house, frightening rumors spread about him and the children all knew them. They even played games where they reenacted the story that was spread around about him, not realizing how disgraceful it was to the Radleys. Towards the end the book, Scout finally get to meet Boo Radley after Bob Ewell attempted to kill her and Jem. Scout took Mr. Radley home and on the way back she thought, “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.

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Boo Radley is a very quiet man who got into trouble with the law at a young age and has stayed inside his house since. Around town, he is seen as a bad man who is very weird for staying inside his house, and rumors about him are everywhere. Scout and Jem hear about this and are very interested about this, so they go and mess around at his house. Even with all these people thinking he is a weird, crazy person, Boo Radley is still a great person. When there was a fire, the kids were outside when it was cold, and Boo Radley was nice enough to wrap a blanket around Scout.

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Yet they still view him as a mysterious figure. Scout recalls, “... crimes committed... were his work... although the culprit was Crazy Addie... people still looked at the Radley Place, unwilling to discard their initial suspicions.” (13) Scout’s remembrance of how the people were “unwilling to discard” their assumptions even when they knew that Boo was not the criminal shows Maycomb’s prejudice. Scout’s recollection not only foreshadows further intolerance in the community but also shows a perspective from young and innocent member, and how she follows the beliefs of the adults.

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Such as, “Boo bit off his mothers’ fingers one night when he couldn’t find any cats or squirrels to eat,” (Chapter 4) Or the rumour of him eating cats “he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch,” (Chapter 1) This led people to believe that Boo Radley was indeed a “monster” and a malevolent person. Harper Lee aims for readers to understand that through the language devices, social prejudice is being shown. Language devices such as the metaphor used to describe Mr Radley, “he was a thin, leathery man with coloured eyes, so colourless, they did not reflect light,” (Chapter 1) This leads the reader to believe that the Radley place is a dark, confined and scary place that not even an animal would dare to go too.

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1339 Words | 6 Pages

He is accountable for creating many themes as well affecting the actions and development of other characters. Furthermore, he plays a major role in the maturation of Jem and Scout. Jem, Scout, and Dill are fascinated by the rumors of Boo Radley around them. People in Maycomb perceive Boo as someone who, “dined on raw squirrels and cats” and “the teeth he had were yellow and rotten”(16). This quote shows the people’s impression of Boo and how they affect the childrens in the book.

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428 Words | 2 Pages

Jem and Scout begin to talk to Dill about the neighborhood, especially the Radley house. The Radley 's are a very unusual family. If anything bad or unexpected happened, mostly everybody blamed it on the Radley house. Dill began to investigate in this situation. Scout said, " The more we told Dill about the Radley 's the more he wanted to know.

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In Maycomb, people fear what they do not know and what is unusual to them, hence shaping the rumours of Boo Radley to cope with the unknown. Considering he is unseen from the public eye, and has a messy past, many begin to fantasize what is happening with him currently by constructing stories. Anyone who claims that they know information on Boo, have no proof or firsthand experience to support it as the truth. Scout knows that Jem’s information source on Boo Radley is from another individual and their fantasies, “So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighbourhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing.”

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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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In the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee shows that we shouldn’t be too quick to judge another person’s character based on outward appearance and the stories and rumors we have heard. The character Boo Radley is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t be hasty to judge. On the outside, Boo looks like a scary neighbor that lives just a few houses away. “.....he had sickly white hands that had never seen the sun. His face was as white as his hands…..”

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