By including Scout’s thoughts about the Radley place, Harper Lee illustrates that Scout has grown older and developed more understanding and empathy towards Boo Radley. At the beginning of the book, when Scout first comes home from school, Atticus tells her “You never really understand a person… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (Lee 39). This has been an ongoing theme all throughout the book. At the beginning of the novel Boo Radley is introduced to the reader as almost a ‘horror story’. The children are afraid of the house, as well as anyone who might inhabit it. Jem says that “he (Boo Radley) dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch… what teeth he had were yellow and rotten.” (Lee 16). Boo Radley is described as a monster. However, as the book slowly progresses, Scout and the reader become more and more acquainted with Arthur as he makes himself known to the children. As both Scout and Jem grow older, the begin to understand things from Boo’s point of view. They ‘climb into his skin’. Their opinions on Arthur are ultimately changed when Boo Radley turned out to be kinder than most people in the town when he gave them a blanket the night Ms. Maudie’s house burnt down. As the ‘current’ summer finished, and the school year started, although nothing has physically changed on the Radley property, Scout’s opinion of the house and those inside it changed dramatically as she grew older and more mature.
I agree with what Veronica said, in the beginning of the book Scout is only six year olds. As a six year old, Scout was probably scared by a "six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch {Boo Radley}" (Lee 16). However, as Scout starts to turn into a lady, she has more experience and is exposed to the outside world. Not only that, I believe that although Scout doesn't like when Jem starts acting all superior and bossy, she does learn from him. At the end of chapter 23 Jem says, "Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something... {Boo} it's because he wants to stay inside." (Lee 304). As Jem starts to mature rapidly, Harper Lee does a really good job of showing the brother-sisterhood by showing that Scout learns from her older brother and begins to "climb into his skin and walk around in it." (Lee 39).
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that Scout is losing her scared, child like feelings about the Radley's. She is now trying understand the Radley's, instead of viewing them as some alien presence. "Maybe someday I would see him... It was only a fantasy. We would never see him." (Lee, 278) she wants to see what Boo is like now as she's matured, even though the house and the people inside have aways been a mystery to her.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Scout is maturing and although the Radley place is still mysterious to her, she is not scared of it anymore. She has grown from a girl, but she still has that curiosity of wanting to see Boo Radley. She says, "But I still looked for him each time I went by. Maybe someday we would see him"(Lee 325). She wanted to see him for such a long time and she still does now. Although she is curious of who he really is, she understands from his point of view. She knows how hard it is for him to stay in his house while people like her wander around his house trying to figure out who he is.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the main reason Scout is becoming slightly less frightened by the place is because she is maturing. "The Radley Place had ceased to terrify me, but it was no less gloomy, no less chilly under its great oaks, and no less uninviting." (Lee 324) Scout is growing older now and she begins to understand that Boo, Arthur Radley is just a person like everyone else in Maycomb. However, no matter how old someone is, there is always an uninviting and spooky sense in certain places.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Veronica, Scout is growing up so she’s not interested in coming up with schemes to see Boo. As she passes the Radley house on the way to school she has a realization “I sometimes felt a twinge of remorse, when passing by the old place, at ever taking part of what must have been sheer torment for Arthur Radley.”(Lee 324). This shows how Scout is maturing. She’s “walking in his skin” because she thinks about how her, Jem and Dill’s actions have affected Boo.
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