Analyse The Author's Treatment Of Boo Radley Essay

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Analyse The Author's Treatment Of Boo Radley Essay

To Kill a Mockingbird
“Analyse the author’s treatment of Boo Radley. What is his role in the novel?”
To Kill a Mockingbird is a story written by Harper Lee, based on the life of young Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch, her brother Jem, her father Atticus and the townspeople of Maycomb County, Alabama. In this essay I will explain and expand upon the three main roles of Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley. Boo Radley is an agoraphobic, reclusive, social outcast that (according to the people of Maycomb) is a horrific monster who kills and eats cats and whom also likes to peep through peoples windows at night (of course, the rumours are highly exaggerated). The three main roles of Boo are, firstly, to act as the ‘mockingbird’ of the novel; secondly, to teach Scout very valuable life lessons about the people around her; and finally, to help bond the three main children of the novel (Jem, Scout and Charles Baker Harris aka. ‘Dill’). …show more content…
This point is emphasised by Boo’s acts towards Scout and Jem during the course of the novel. These acts include: Placing a blanket over Scout as she stood in the freezing snow while Miss Maudie’s house burnt down, hiding gifts in the knothole of a tree that Scout and Jem passed by every day after school and eventually saving Scout and Jem’s life in an incident involving a rival (Bob Ewell) of Atticus in a recent court case. These three warm, affectionate acts are what make Boo Radley into what he is at the end of the novel: A

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