"Boo" Arthur Radley

Boo Radley (Arthur) is the object of fascination for Jem, Scout, and Dill. He is a recluse who has remained in the house down the street from the Finch house for years. Myths and rumours about Boo and his family abound. According to town gossip, Boo stabbed his father in the leg when he was a boy and has since been confined to his house. The children imagine Boo as a ghoulish figure who eats cats and stalks about the neighbourhood under the cover of night. In fact, Boo stands as a figure of innocence that befriends and protects the children in his own way.

The theories that various people in the neighbourhood put forth to explain Boo tell you more about the theorizers than about Boo himself. Miss Crawford, who loves gossip, spreads the tale that Boo Radley roams the neighbourhood at night peeping into people's windows- especially hers. Scout and Jem, early on in the story, imagine Boo as over six feet tall and horrendously ugly, a monster who strangles cats with his bare hands and then eats them. Miss Maudie, an optimistic woman who believes in enjoying nature and the good things in life, is sure that Boo is the victim of his father's overstrict and gloomy moral code.

Oddly enough, even as you learn that Boo actually is the killer of Bob Ewell, he seems less frightening now than he did before. Face to face with the neighbourhood hermit for the first time, Scout sees that he is really a shy, pale, harmless man- a middle-aged child.