Arthur Boo In To Kill A Mockingbird

Arthur ‘boo’ radley
At the start of the novel ‘boo’ is described as a “malevolent phantom”. Boo is never seen outside the house. ”phantom” shows us that harper lee wants to hint that boo haunts his house like a ghost would. The fact that “phantom” is used and ghost isn’t means that the reader is meant to think that boo is evil. This is backed up by the word “malevolent” showing that boo wishes to harm others something only a “phantom” would do.
This idea of Boo being a “phantom” is further enforced by the fact “ a negro would not cross the place at night” this shows that the most empathetic section of maycomb society won’t go anywhere nere the place out of fear of boo and only the children will go near it “on a dare” this helps the reader
get the image of a monster house with boo as its keeper.
On one night some of maycomb’s children go to see boo in the night, they manage to reach the door but the ”radleys bloody fangs” are reviled in a gunshot toward them.
This was a ‘’ misunderstanding ‘’ mr radley though they were stealing his potatoes but this shows the level of sececy that the radleys take. This also shows the Americas attude towards guns and property.
Because of boo’s vilent past towards his family he “ drove the scissors into his parent’s leg”. He is surpected of “any stealthy crimes “that occur in maycomb. This is without any evidence which shows that boo is used as a scape goat in the town to explain anything unknown especially to children.
Maycomb’s children do not know anything about the real boo saying he “dines on raw squirrels2 this is obvisly childhood imagination. Harper lee shows us the mistary of boo from a childs perspective and the apochryphat tales have sparned. It also shows that no one has told them about why he was metaphorically “chained” up in the “phantom[s]”house. Harper lee uses the word “dines” to suggest that boo is a refined character with manors. But when you pair it up with “squirrels” it suddenly has a sister undertone. {say something about the
squirrels}
It takes an outsider (Dill) to get anyone to find out the truth about boo “on a dare” this shows that such a small thing can spark a big challenge. This is how some children start their search for the truth. But this is the same though out America a problem ignored is a problem solved. An example of this is how coloured people didn’t have any rights until some 100 years after slavery had been abolished
How dill gets anything to change is by complete accident “the more [jem,scout] told dill … the more he wanted to know” a child blind curiosity about something new and unknown to him, leads to him voicing his questions. “wonder what he does in there”.

In chapter 5 harper lee shows us that some people in maycomb might understand the radleys “what mr radley [boo] did was his own business” these words spoken by attcus show that some of the radleys life is understood the fact that they want to be left a lone is the only reason some need to.
But children can’t handle this reason and would bother the radley’s so some of the adults must of slipped a roomer about boo out . parshally as a form of kindness and to suit there own selfish purposes allowing to use boo as a demon to keep the children in line. How ever some of boo past is known to the children but only through “ neibourhood legend” whith make the information only as all the other storys around boo, but this from a readers perspective is viltle information , that allows the reader to see the mocking bird metaphore for boo that is reviled at the end of the
novel.
Once scout has learnt the truth about boo. Boo “ceased to terrify [scout]” harper lee uses this to show that once you try to understand a person to “step in their shoes” you only then get why they act how they act.