- Submitted by: Ezma
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 04/02/2011 05:22 PM
- Pages: 4
To Kill a Mockingbird-Relaionship of Children with Boo Radley
Essay Draft 1
Question: How does the relationship between the three children and Boo Radley represent the concept of ‘prejudice’ in ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’?
The relationship between Boo Radley and the children is one of the many examples used to exemplify the concept of social prejudice in ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’. The author does this by ingeniously using various techniques that make it clearly obvious that the ‘stigma’ and various assumptions associated with Boo Radley are entirely false. This concept of social prejudice is portrayed by Lee’s choice of character, use of dramatic irony, use of simplistic terminology and perspective that allows the reader to ‘read between the lines’ as well as having Boo Radley contradicting the false assumptions of the society through his actions.
In ‘To kill a mocking bird’ the characters of the young children are simplistic and they see the world in concrete terms. Scout, who is the narrator of the book, is a young and naive child, whose voice dominates the central plot. Consequently, the reader is able to make connections and understand events in a way which Scout does not. For example: Scout describes Boo as a ‘malevolent phantom ‘who is over six feet tall and dines on rabbit and squirrels. Of course we as readers understand that there is more to Boo Radley than these superficial descriptions imply. As a result, this technique highlights the concept of prejudice as it allows the readers to clearly see that Boo Radley is misinterpreted and it also allows readers to ‘read between the lines’ and formulate our own opinions.
The three children make prejudicial assumptions of Boo Radley base on what they hear about him from the society. They do not have succinct evidence to justify the stereotypical remarks they hear about him and most importantly they have not actually met him in order to accurately judge him. This common fact is easily noticeable to the reader and correspondingly it is clearly seen that the...