The image is desolate: a lonesome man isolates himself in his home for years as his neighbors question his motives. In To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee portrays the mysterious character through narrator Scout’s perspective. Scout would listen to the gossip in her neighborhood, especially regarding one peculiar neighbor. Lee characterizes Arthur “Boo” Radley as a benevolent, mysterious outcast. In doing so, Lee suggests that one may isolate his or her self to avoid ruthless judgment from others.
Depicted as a compassionate character in the novel, Lee subtly portrays Boo through the use of reliable and trustworthy characters. When Scout asks her neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson if Boo is still alive, Miss Maudie says she “know he’s alive” …show more content…
The children and the town become extremely fascinated by Boo’s existence because he has not been “seen for fifteen years” (10). As a result, the rumors regarding Boo’s isolation over the years have thus commenced in the town of Maycomb. The town gossip, Miss Stephanie Crawford, once told the town that “Boo drove [his] scissors into his parent’s leg” (11). Miss Stephanie fills the children’s imagination with stories of Boo. The children eventually create a game one summer where they reenact a scene in which Boo stabs Mr. Radley in the leg. The children even create a description of Boo’s appearance based on the rumors. When Dill asks Jem what Boo looks like, Jem says he “was about six-and-a-half feet tall”; he had “bloodstained” hands, “a long jagged scar” across his face and “yellow and rotten” teeth (13). The rumors about Boo become a topic of the children’s imagination as they try to depict an image of their peculiar neighbor. Another rumor pertaining Boo, according to Miss Stephanie, is she “found [Boo] looking in the window at her” one night (45). As more rumors about Boo develop, the people of Maycomb begin to fear Boo and avoid the Radley place. Although Lee depicts Boo as a mysterious and malevolent character from the neighborhood gossip, Boo’s subtle appearances throughout the novel reveals his true