To Kill A Mockingbird: Seeming vs. Reality

Seeming vs. Reality: To Kill a Mockingbird
When first seen, many individuals aren’t what they seem to be. Individuals are often wrongfully accused of actions they didn’t perform, or of crimes they didn’t commit. Because a person is different on the outside than a “normal” person, they are often taunted and criticized, and untruthful rumors are spread about these unfortunate individuals. These rumors often cause people to believe ideas that aren’t true, and soon those individuals who are said to be so dire and horrid, are actually found to be pleasant, caring individuals. “Radley is the Finch's neighbor who has an evil reputation, especially among the children, who fear him without ever having met him” (Scott Stabler, “To Kill a Mockingbird”). The notion that looks are deceiving has been clearly illustrated through the lives of several characters in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Living in the Radley Place, directly around the corner from the Finch’s house, is Boo Radley. Jem’s description of Boo is as follows: “Above average height for a male, Boo was. His hands were stained red as his meals came from raw squirrels and cats. He had a long, rickety scar down his face and drooled very often. His yellow teeth had gone bad” (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 14). Obviously, Boo isn’t a very attractive guy. Boo Radley is an extremely despised character throughout a great deal of the novel. Numerous rumors have been spread around about Boo; the majority of which are not true. First, Boo’s mother is described: “She also lost most of her teeth, her hair, and her right forefinger (Dill’s contribution. Boo bit it off one night when he couldn’t find any cats and squirrels to eat.)” (Lee 44). Boo is seen here as a cannibalistic psycho that bit off not only his mother’s finger, but on a regular basis dines on raw cats and squirrels. Along with cats and squirrels, Boo is also said to have whittled away all of the furniture in his house.

Other posts related to To Kill a Mockingbird:
To Kill a Mockingbird: Why the Title?
An Outline for a Paper on To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird: Seeming vs. Reality

Boo is often recognized by children as being poisonous and dangerous to be around because he is said to be so appalling. Walter Cunningham says, “Almost died first year I come to school and et them pecans- folks say he [Boo] pizened ‘em and put ‘em over on the school side of the fence” (Lee 26). This is yet another instance where it is necessary to place the emphasis of this quote on the fact that ‘folks say’, and ‘people say’. It starts with one person; some fallacious story is told, and soon enough just because ‘people say’, the rumor is believed to be true. “Lee draws parallels of ignorance in her handling of characters Boo Radley and Tom Robinson; they are both presumed guilty with no one having taken the time to get to know them” (Stabler, “TKAM”). Along with believing that Boo is poisonous, is the idea that the Radley Place and everything contained in its lot is poisonous. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to even touch the trees over there? You’ll get killed if you do!” (Lee 37). This declaration by Jem shows how the children fear the wrath of Boo and the Radley Place. Another question in mind is: is Boo Radley still alive? Scout suggests, “Maybe he died and they stuffed him up the chimney” (Lee 48). After this proposition from Scout, Miss Maudi insists that Boo Radley is still alive because she hasn’t seen him carried out of the house in a body bag yet. Scout also says, “People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him” (Lee 9). These ideas are what make Jem, Scout, and Dill want to try to make Boo Radley come out of his house; they are extremely curious as to whether there is any truth to all of the rumors that they had been hearing.

Rumored also to be a criminal, Boo has been constantly tormented behind his back for years with obscene gossip. “According to neighborhood legend, when the younger Radley boy was in his teens he became acquainted with some of the Cunninghams from Old Sarum,” and “they formed the nearest thing to a gang ever seen in Maycomb” (Lee 10). The reader doesn’t actually find out if there is any truth to this rumor, although one usually assumes that a person as hideous and cannibalistic as Boo is likely to commit an act of this nature. Boo is again pictured as a psycho with the following anecdote: “According to Miss Stephanie, Boo was sitting in the living room cutting some items from The Maycomb Tribune to paste in his scrapbook. His father entered the room. As Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the scissors into his parent’s leg” (Lee 12). ‘According to Miss Stephanie’; yet again, the rumor is ‘according’ to someone. Claudia Johnson in ­To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries asserts that, “This begs the question of whether his assault on his father is provoked while he is reading the newspaper because it reminds him of his forced prohibition from establishing an intercourse with the world” (Johnson 111). Because Scout has been hearing so many fictitious rumors, she has become paranoid. Her paranoia can be easily seen in the hesitation in which she contains in the following passage: “Every night-sound I heard from my cot on the back porch was magnified three-fold; every scratch of feet on gravel was Boo Radley seeking revenge” and with, “insects splashing against the screen were Boo Radley’s insane fingers picking the wire to pieces” (Lee 62). “Like other dispossessed people in the novel, Boo is doomed to communicate without language,” (Johnson 111). Eventually, Scout realizes that no one person could have ever committed such a great number of appalling acts. Scout begins questioning all that she has heard, and eventually inquires to Miss Maudi, “Do you think they’re true, all those things they say about B- Mr. Arthur?” (Lee 50). Notice, none of the rumors spread around about Boo have come from a credible source; it’s always what ‘they say’ and what ‘folks say’, never what Mr. Radley or town officials have said. Boo Radley is depicted by these rumors as a ruthless character, but as shall be shown, Boo is not what he appears to be.

Boo Radley’s reputation is that he’s a terrible person that does terrible things. Not only the Finch children, but every one of the children in Maycomb fears Boo Radley and the Radley Place. Scout describes Boo as being a “malevolent phantom” (Lee 9). “I ran by the Radley Place as fast as I could, not stopping until I reached the safety of our front porch” (Lee 37). As does every other child in Maycomb, Scout and Jem run past the Radley Place every time they come near it. One of the children attending school with Scout, Cecil Jacobs, essentially walks a half mile out of his way every day, just to avoid the Radley Place. Dill, a friend of the Finch’s, is a young little boy who spends every summer with his aunt in Maycomb. While he is there, he spends most of his time playing with Scout and Jem. Dill too knows of how wretched Boo is, as he states here: “…, where Dill stood looking down the street at the dreary face of the Radley Place. ‘I-smell-death,’ he said. ‘I do, I mean it,’” (Lee 40). Between the three of them, the children like to act out plays during the summer. One summer Dill had the idea that: “‘I know what we are going to play, Boo Radley’” (Lee 43). The children decide to act out Boo Radley, but Atticus catches them on one occasion, and tells the children that it isn’t right to make fun of people. Atticus also tells the children not to perform their ‘play’ any more. The children comply with Atticus’s request, but it makes them ever the more curious to find out what Boo Radley is really like. “, and it was then that Dill gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out” (Lee 9). “There is the Radley drama, performed for their own edification, which the neighbors and Atticus finally see” (Johnson 112). Jem insists he is unable to conjure up a way of making Boo come out of the house, without him ‘getting’ them.

“Miss Stephanie Crawford said she woke up in the middle of the night one time and saw him [Boo] looking straight through the window at her, said his head was like a skull lookin’ at her” (Lee 14). Clearly visible in this case is the fact that Miss Stephanie Crawford is indeed paranoid herself, and has produced this false story about Boo in a mere attempt to get attention. This is another example of how Boo is pictured as being a horrible individual. Jem even says one time that a “hain’t” lives in the Radley Place, referring to Boo. Jem is telling others of how Boo is a misbehaving, childish creature. Boo is actually not a bad person at all, he just has a number of issues that need to be worked out.

Other posts related to To Kill a Mockingbird:
To Kill a Mockingbird: Why the Title?
An Outline for a Paper on To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird: Seeming vs. Reality

Boo Radley has shown numerous acts of kindness throughout the entire novel. First is an incident where Jem, Dill, and Scout went onto the back porch of the Radley Place to look through a window, in hope that they might be able to catch a peak of Boo. What happens is Mr. Radley hears the noise on the porch, and fires his shotgun into the yard. The kids go scrambling, but Jem’s pants get stuck in a collard patch in the yard, and he is forced to leave them behind. “He [Jem] returns to find them crudely sewn and neatly folded” (“Harper Lee”, Contemporary Literary Criticism, 239). Boo sewed up Jem’s pants and laid them out for him. This is the first of many actions Boo has taken that show the good in him. As the novel progresses, Scout and Jem begin to find objects left in a tree on the corner of the Radley Place lot. First, they find a couple pieces of gum. The gum seems to be a way of showing that he [Boo] isn’t poisonous. After, they discover two soap carvings that look exactly like themselves. This shows that Boo has been watching them, and he knows the children quite well. “Boo’s art- the soap sculptures- are lovingly executed as a means of extending himself [Boo] to the children” (Johnson 112). After the soap carvings, an old spelling medal is found in the knothole. “The carvings are works of art, communication, and love. The spelling medal is also connected with literacy and communication” (Johnson 111). The next item found was a ball of twine, and following that, an entire package of gum. The final article found in the tree was a broken pocket watch with an aluminum knife. All of these items show how Boo is a nice person that is merely attempting to connect with the outside world. “The presents that he [Boo] leaves in the tree appear to be Boo’s last attempt to reach outside his prison” (Johnson 111). Just as Boo was beginning to communicate, his older brother fills the knothole in the tree with cement. “…committed what would be a mortal sin in this novel- he has attempted to silence love” (Johnson 111). Scout summons a meeting with Ms. Maudi Atkins, where at which Scout asks numerous questions about Boo. The answer to one of which was “I remember Arthur Radley when he was a boy. He always spoke nicely to me, no matter what folks said he did. Spoke as nicely as he knew how” (Lee 51). Miss Maudi states that Boo was always nice to her, no matter what folks said. The focus here should be on ‘no matter what folks said’. That is perhaps still the case to that day. No matter what all the rumors going around about Boo say, he may still be a nice person. One night, Miss Maudie’s house caught on fire and went up in flames. Jem and Scout were forced outside of their house in fear that it may catch on too. It was a bitterly cold night, and the children were told to stand at the end of the street, in front of the Radley Place. When Atticus came over to the kids to take them back home, Scout had a blanket around her. Boo Radley put the blanket around Scout on that brutally cold night in concern that she might get hypothermia. Boo acted as he did out of the goodness of his heart.
Seeing the truth within Boo, and understanding how he truly is, is imperative in the expedition to finding the good in Boo. “A real tragedy of Jem’s boyhood, and most likely of Boo’s life, is the severing of their channel of communication, the hole in the oak tree” (Johnson 111). Referring back to the oak tree incident, the filling of the knothole was a major blunder in the quest for finding the true Boo. Who knows what might have come after the pocket watch; it could have been a note from Boo, saying he is a nice person, and wants to be friends with the children. Scout is talking to Atticus on one occasion where she shifts the conversation to Boo. Atticus is in the midst of telling Jem to stay away from the Radley Place and not the bother the Radley’s, when he says: “I swear to God he ain’t ever harmed us, he ain’t ever hurt us, he could a cut my throat from ear to ear that night but he tried to mend my pants instead… he ain’t ever hurt us, Atticus-” (Lee 81). Jem is saying how Boo could have murdered Jem that night with the collard patch incident, but Boo isn’t like that; Boo is a nice person, never hurting anybody ever.
Towards the very end of the novel, a tragic incident occurs. On the way back from a Halloween play at the school, Jem and Scout are ambushed by Bob Ewell. Bob Ewell was attacking the children in an attempt for revenge against their father, who defended an African-American against Ewell’s daughter. Ewell manages to break Jem’s arm, when suddenly he is stopped, and stabbed in the stomach with a knife. It was Boo Radley; he was protecting the children against their attacker. When Boo is finally seen, he does not appear the same as originally suggested by Jem. Scout recalls his description: “I looked from his hands to his sand-stained khaki pants; my eyes traveled up his thin frame to his torn denim shirt. His face was as white as his hands, but for a shadow on his jutting chin. His hair was dead and thin” (Lee 310-11). Claudia Johnson in Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird: a Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents asserts that “Atticus and the sheriff break the law to protect Boo Radley from jail and from the community’s attention after he has saved the children’s lives by killing Bob Ewell” (Johnson, Understanding TKAM, 3). Atticus once told Scout that shooting a mockingbird was a sin because they do nothing but good. Scout then confirms the story with the question: “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?” (Lee 318). Scout is inferring that by prosecuting someone who has overcome as much tormenting as he has, that it would be like shooting a mockingbird because Boo risked his life for the children’s, and saved their lives. Someone who has done so much, does not deserve to go to jail for it. Scout then recalls: “Atticus was right. Onetime he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough” (Lee 322). Throughout the novel, Jem and Scout learn that not necessarily everything they hear is true. They learn the difference between truth and gossip. In this novel, “valuable lessons are learned in confronting those who are unlike ourselves and unlike those we know best- what might be called people of difference” (Johnson, Understanding TKAM, 1). Boo is a person unlike most, whom which the children believe at first to be an uncivilized maniac, but soon learn that “it takes a strong mind and a big heart to come to love Boo Radley,” (Johnson, Understanding TKAM, 2). On the night of the attack, Boo accompanies Scout into Jem’s room, where Jem is sleeping. Scout tells Boo that she can touch him and that its perfectly acceptable for him to do so. Instead of lashing out irrationally like the psycho Boo is first pictured as, he lightly pets Jem’s head. Afterward, Scout escorts Boo home, arm in arm. Boo obviously must contain a great deal of kindness and compassion in order for him to act in the manner in which he did. Scout returns home and asks her father to read her a story. She falls asleep, and when she awakens, she tells her father that she was listening the entire time and knows exactly what happened. Scout gives the following summary: “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” (Lee 323). The notion that looks are deceiving has been illustrated without doubt through the life of Boo Radley in: To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout’s recap of that story is almost identical to the story of Boo’s life. When Boo was finally seen, the truth was revealed, and he hadn’t done any of the horrible things that he was said to have done. He was a nice person who would never harm anyone, and who just needed someone to communicate with.

Other posts related to To Kill a Mockingbird:
To Kill a Mockingbird: Why the Title?
An Outline for a Paper on To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird: Seeming vs. Reality

Works Cited

“Harper Lee.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 60, 1990.
Johnson, Claudia. To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994.
---. Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird: a Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Harper Collins, 1960. Stabler, Scott. “To Kill a Mockingbird.” St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. 1999.