Who Is Boo Radley's Childhood In To Kill A Mockingbird

633 Words3 Pages
“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” Jean Louise Finch ‘Scout’ is the narrator of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird. The story is told from an adult Scout’s point of view as she reflects upon the events of her childhood. Scout illustrates through her thoughts ,actions ,and effect on others the theme perceptions can be warped by assumptions or stereotypes. Scout demonstrates through her thoughts that her perception of Boo Radley is warped by the assumptions of others. Scout is young and impressionable, which results in her believing these assumptions. “Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: 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 bloodstained...” (Lee,16 ). Dill, Scout and Jem make a game of trying to provoke “Boo” Radley, who has not left his house for fifteen years, to come outside. She discovers near the end of the novel that he is not a crazy, seven foot man who eats squirrels and that it was wrong for her to believe that. Scout thought her game with Jem and Dill, the "Radley Game", was just harmless…show more content…
The interaction reveals that Scout has good intentions for the most part but sometimes she doesn’t think before she acts. “You watch out, now,” I warned. Dill released the straws and grinned. “Scout, it’s nothing but Coca-Cola.” (Lee,204) Scout’s intentions are good, but because of what she has been told she makes the assumption that Mr. Raymond has whiskey in the paper sack, not coca-cola. It is revealed he drinks or rather pretends to because no one in Maycomb would understand that he does what he does because he wants to. Scout comes to understand that Mr. Raymond is actually a very sympathetic person and not a drunk and that her initial observation of him was marred by the previously made
Open Document