User:Stbalbach/asl

One of the most significant mockingbirds in Lee’s tale is Boo Radley. Arthur Radley, or Boo, a reclusive and mentally unstable man ruined by his sadistic deistic father, lives near the Finches and infrequently, if ever, ventures outdoors. However, on one of these rare expeditions out, Boo rescues Scout and Jem from a crazed townsman’s attack by stabbing the perpetrator with a kitchen knife. When confronted with turning Boo into the authorities, Scout comments that hurting Boo Radley would be like "shootin’ a mockingbird." For despite the prejudice and pain Boo so feared his purity of heart ruled his actions when saving the Finch children. Forcing good intentioned and innocent Boo into the dogmatic, hateful, and harsh world of Southern Alabama’s Maycomb would have destroyed him; it would have been an awful lot like shootin’ a mockingbird.