Boo Radley and the Community

Hi, my name is Scout. For as long as I can remember, all the children in my town Maycomb have been afraid of Boo Radley. Children often go out of their way to avoid the Radley house. I used to share these feelings with them, but not anymore. Recently my mind has completely changed. I guess it all started when I found some chewing gun in a knothole in a tree. Then my brother Jem and I found other gifts in the tree. I started to think it was Boo Radley. Maybe of the stories I’d heard about him were just rumors. I think everything changed when Jem and I snuck into the Radley yard. We weren’t there very long because we had heard a gunshot and then ran out of there. But it wasn’t that easy. Jem’s pants got caught on the fence and he had to leave them behind. It wasn’t until later that Jem told me the pants had been mended. It then hit me that Boo Radley wasn’t the monster everyone said he was. How could they even know what he’s like, they never even met him. How could they, he hardly ever leaves the house. Jem, our friend Dill and I used to play a game where we would act out stories we had stories we had heard about the Radleys. We weren’t allowed to play the game after my father Atticus found out and told us to stop. Now I wouldn’t want to play the game anyway. I now see the way Boo Radley tried to reach out to us. Everything the community believes about Boo Radley is based completely on rumors. If they all didn’t have a one track mind they might be able to see that they’re wrongly judging him. If the people of Maycomb don’t keep an open mind about Boo Radley and black people in general, I don’t know what will happen, especially with Tom Robinson’s trial around the corner.

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