The misery of that house began many years before Jem and Scout were born. The Radley's welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb. They did not go to church but worshipped at home. Boo's father was "a thin leathery man with colourless eyes" and "ramrod straight posture". Apart from that he was an extremely religious man and "took the word of God as his only law", "but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky in the hand of your father" explained Miss Maudie to Jem and Scout.
But at the age of thirty-two Boo snaps, as he "drove the scissors into his."
Boo also leaves small gifts in a tree knothole as a way of trying to communicate with Jem and Scout, but as Jem suggests leaving a thank- you letter Nathan comes and cements the hole up. The next day Jem asks "Mr Radley, ah - did you put cement in that tree down yonder?" "Yes" he said, "I filled it up." "Why'd you do it, sir?" Jem asked. "Trees dying. You plug 'em up when they're sick." The wasn't dying Nathan had filled it up to stop Boo communicating with the children which Jem soon realized after asking Atticus about the tree.
Boo is also a very patient character shown by his tolerance of Jem, Scout and Dill as they constantly mimic him and the focus of their childhood games. Despite being neglected himself Boo never harms anyone. Towards the end of the book Boo saves Jem and Scout as Bob Ewell tries to exact revenge on Atticus for his efforts trying to save Tom Robinson in the court case. Heck Tate sees this and convinces Atticus that Bob fell on his knife when trying to kill Jem and Scout. He did this to protect Boo, as he knew he would suffer from going through a court case even if he were found not guilty. This told nicely at the end of the book when Scout said, "Boo gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good luck pennies and our lives."
IV. Tom Robinson is a twenty-five year old Negro living in Maycomb. Tom is married to Helen and they have three children. The family is part of the respectable church-going black community.
When he was a boy his arm became crippled "caught it in a cotton gin . . . like to've bled to death . . . tore all the muscles loose from his bones. During the testimony Tom explained how he would give gifts of labour to Mayella Ewell. Tom became acquainted with her "I had to pass her place goin' to and from the field every day." "I'd tip my hat when I'd go by and one day she asked me to come inside the fence and bust up a chiffarobe for her." She said, "I reckon I'll hafta give you a nickel, won't I?" an I said "No ma'am, there ain't no charge." "I was glad to do it, Mr Ewell didn't seem to help her none and neither did the chillun, and I knowed she didn't have no nickels to spare."
But his refusal for payment eventually condemns him at the trial. Similarly to the Mockingbird, Mayella lured Tom into a trap. It was at the trial when Scout thought to herself Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world ever. She was even lonelier then Boo Radley who had not been out of his house in twenty-five years. When Atticus asked her had she any friends, she seemed not to know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She was sad, Jem called her a mixed child: white people wouldn't have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs, Negroes wouldn't' have anything to do with her because she was white. Tom Robinson was probably the only person that was ever decent to her. It was socially unacceptable for a white woman to have a relationship with a Negro, so if a white girl were caught with a Negro she would immediately cry rape.
So after Mayella had saved up enough money to send all her brothers and sisters to town to get ice creams she lured Tom in. Tom came inside the fence an' was looking for some kindlin' but he didn't see any and Mayella called "Naw, I got something for you to do in the house. Th' old doors off its hinges an' falls comin' on pretty fast. Tom said "Miss Mayella this door looks alright. Well I best be goin." She says "just step on that chair yonder an gat that box down from top of the chiffarobe. She'd grabbed me around the legs then hugged me. She reached up an' kissed me side of the face. She says she never kissed a grown man before an's she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don't count." Tom said "lemme outa here" an' I tried to run but she got her back to the door an' I'da had to push her. I didn't wanta harm her. Then Mr Ewell hollered through th' window. Somethin not fittin' to say - not fittin' for these folk's chillun to hear. This passage of text shows he is harmless and doesn't want to hurt Mayella. It also about his immaculate manners, which Scout previously compared to Atticus'. But the way in which he was killed trying a last ditch attempt to escape when he was shot in 'cold blood'.
V. Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up peoples gardens, don't nets in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. They spend their life giving us their beautiful song, but like Tom or even Boo they don't have their own voice. "That why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
Boo a naturally shy character had lived in confine for twenty five years had many rumours spread about him by Miss Stephanie's Crawford, a neighbourhood scold who claimed she knew the "whole thing". Apparently Boo "drove a pair of scissors into his parents leg while collecting newspaper cuttings. Mr Radley ran screaming into the street that Arthur was killing them all, but when the sheriff arrived he found Boo still sitting in the living room, cutting up the Tribune. She also said old Mr Radley said no Radley was going to any asylum, when it was suggested that a season in Tuscaloosa might be helpful to Boo. Miss Stephanie also told he was "so upright he took the word of God as his only law, and we believed her, because Mr. Radleys posture was ramrod straight." Maycomb was a small town in the Southern State of Alabama and it is often said small towns have a small town mentality of spreading gossip.
"The doors of the Radley Place closed on weekdays, as well as Sundays. The house was low, was once white but had long ago darkened to the colour of slate-grey yard around it. Rain rotten shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The back of the Radley house was less inviting than the front: a ramshackle porch ran the width of the house; there were two doors and two dark windows between the doors and a squeaky gate that divided the garden from the back yard. This epitomized the Radley family an inward dying family, something that could also be used to describe Maycomb.
It is a superstition that black men are better in bed due to the fact that they're more endowed in the genetalia area. This is thought to go back to when the Negroes were slaves and they became more muscular and it has been in their genes ever since.
Mr. Underwood simply figured it was a sin to kill cripples, bet they standing sitting or escaping. He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children. Senseless killing Tom had been given due processes of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly convicted by twelve good men and true; Atticus had fought for him all the way. Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was dead the minute Mayella opened her mouth and screamed.
Harper Lee History
Harper Lee, was born in 1926 as the youngest of three children she was brought up in the deep American South and lived in a small town called Monroeville.
Harper Lee grew up in the same town as writer Truman Capote. She was a bit of a tomboy and he was more sensitive and effeminate. Both authors drew on this friendship in their works e.g. Dill in 'To kill a Mocking bird'.
After attending local schools in Monroeville Harper Lee went on to study law at the University of Alabama. She never completed her degree and instead went to work in New York as an airline reservations clerk, trying to raise finance to achieve a lifelong ambition of becoming a writer.
In 1960 she published her first and only novel 'To kill a Mockingbird', it became an immediate bestseller and won her many awards.
To kill a mockingbird is set in a small town in Alabama in the Southern States of America. Although Maycomb is a make believe town, it is based on Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, although real places like Montgomery are
