Boo Radley's Mental Illness In To Kill A Mockingbird

In “To Kill A Mockingbird”, Boo Radley is considered an outsider and many people in Maycomb think of him very poorly. Boo shows signs of schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Schizophrenia is “a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation”(google.com). He stays in the house all the time away from people and we find out that he stabbed his father. Nobody in the right mind would attempt to kill someone, especially someone in their family. Due to Boo’s actions, everyone in Maycomb thinks he is some kind of monster including Jem, Dill, and Scout. They think
It can be interpreted in many different ways; one being because there is bad in the world and he wants to stay inside and another being he is facing a mental illness where he thinks everyone is bad, when all are not. He’s aware of the talk around town and he isn’t ready to go out and be judged. The signs Boo shows relate to having a mental illness. Having a mental illness is nobody’s fault, there isn’t anything that could've been done to stop it. There’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I know from experience that having any mental illness affects not only the person who has it, but many others around them as well. His father is aware that he isn’t in the right mind, and that’s why he keeps him in the house away from everyone else. (EXAMPLE FROM BOOK) Most people don’t accept the fact that they have a mental illness and they blame others for their actions. It’s always someone else's fault. It’s quite sad how people think poorly of Boo, it’s not his fault the way he is and there is no way for it to be handled. Medication helps but does not fully treat a mental