Boo Radley (Arthur Radley)

TL;DR: The reclusive next-door neighbor who has not left his house in fifteen years. The town legend in Part One — chained to his bed, eating raw squirrels. The silent gift-giver in the knothole, the unseen mender of Jem's pants, the man who lays the blanket on Scout's shoulders the night of the fire. The mockingbird the book's title is most directly about.

Spoiler level: medium. Does not name what he does on Halloween night, but identifies his pattern of small protective acts across Part One. Anyone who has not read the book yet should expect plot turns.

Snapshot

Arthur Radley — universally called Boo — lives in the closed-up gray house three doors down from the Finches with his older brother Nathan. He has not been seen by the town in fifteen years. He is the children's favorite mythology in Part One, and the book's most argued-about figure for fifteen of its thirty-one chapters. By the end of the book he is, quietly, its hero.

Role in the story

Boo is on-stage for one chapter (29). He is off-stage but actively present for almost the entire rest of the book — laughing inside the house when Scout rolls into the Radley yard in a tire (Ch. 4); leaving gum, pennies, soap dolls, a watch chain, and a spelling-bee medal in the knothole of his oak (Chs. 4, 7); mending Jem's torn pants and folding them on the wire fence (Ch. 7); laying a brown wool blanket on Scout's shoulders during Miss Maudie's fire (Ch. 8); and, on the final Halloween of the book, doing the one thing the whole novel has been quietly preparing the reader for. The book's title rule — "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" — turns out to be a rule about him.

Personality in plain English

When the children finally see him in Chapter 29, he is not what Maycomb gossip has described. He is shy almost to immobility. He whispers in a rasping voice that has been used so little it sounds borrowed. He is gentle, awkward, intelligent. He has been watching the Finch children grow up from his upstairs window for years, with quiet affection. The book makes the case — without saying it out loud — that fifteen years of solitude have not made him a monster; they have made him a man who finds the world overwhelming and small acts of kindness manageable.

What he wants

To be left alone, mostly. To watch the Finch children from a safe distance. To do small careful favors for them — favors that almost never require him to be seen. And, in the end, to walk home from the Finch porch and close his front door behind him for the rest of his life.

What he fears

Being seen. Being talked about. The town that has made him a story for fifteen years. The single porch lamp in Chapter 30 is dimmed for his sake; he sits on the porch swing only after the lights are turned down.

Key relationships

• Scout — whose shoulders he covers with a blanket in Chapter 8, whose chicken-wire ham costume he pulls her out of in Chapter 28, and whose arm she finally links through his on the Radley porch in Chapter 31.
• Jem — whose pants he mends on the wire fence in Chapter 7, whose broken body he carries home from the live oaks in Chapter 28. The novel's opening frame — Jem's broken arm — is in some sense Boo's frame too.
• Atticus — whom he sees by reputation and whose case he never comments on, but whom he saves from the consequence of what Bob Ewell does in Chapter 28.
• Mr. Nathan Radley — his older brother, the one who fills the knothole with cement in Chapter 7 and cuts off the only line of communication Boo has been able to keep with the children.
• Bob Ewell — whom he meets on the road home from the pageant in Chapter 28.
• Heck Tate — who makes the decision on the porch in Chapter 30 to protect him from the consequences of what he has done.

Visual identity

Sickly white skin — "the color of a man who has been out of the sun for a long time" — almost translucent, with fine blue veins visible at the temples. Hair the color of dead leaves (the book's specific phrase), very fine, falling forward over the brows, ungroomed. Large pale gray eyes "so colorless I thought he was blind." Narrow gaunt face, prominent cheekbones because the cheeks below are hollow. Long slender almost fragile hands with knuckles that look too large for the fingers. A slight stoop at the shoulders. He appears in a long-sleeved white cotton work shirt buttoned to the throat, too large in the collar; loose dark trousers; no shoes seen.

Aliases

The following names and references in the book all point to this character. Use any of these as link anchors back to this page.

• Boo Radley (canonical — the most common form)
• Arthur Radley
• Mr. Arthur
• Arthur
• Boo

Discussion questions

• The Boo of the town's gossip — chained to his bed, eating raw squirrels, the malevolent spirit of the gray house — is debunked by Miss Maudie in Chapter 5. Why does the book give the children (and us) so many more chapters of the legend after Maudie has already corrected it?
• Boo's small protective acts begin in Chapter 4 and continue through Chapter 28. At what point did you, as a reader, realize what the pattern was?
• Lee's title rule — "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" — names a moral category. Boo and Tom Robinson are its two clearest members. What does it do to the book to have those two characters paired by the title even though they never meet?
• The closing image of the novel is Scout looking back from the Radley porch at her own street. Why does Lee choose Boo's vantage as the perspective the book ends on?
• Heck Tate's decision on the porch in Chapter 30 protects Boo from public attention. Atticus initially objects. Whose side does the book ultimately take, and why?