Harper Lee creates characters that help make the novels appealing to audiences of all ages. In To Kill a Mockingbird we learn life lessons from both children and adults. There are three characters who are despised by the society around them, one because of their race and two because of their morals. Society ignored these people simply because they were afraid that they might be like them and like the unknown. Lee uses violence and alienation to help describe the things that are wrong within the small society. Alienation, a commonly experienced feeling, stems from society's intolerance of individual differences in race, gender, class, circumstance, or ideology. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the alienation of some characters to portray the moral assumptions and values of society. This is achieved through the alienation of Arthur "Boo" Radley, Tom Robinson, and Atticus Finch, who all play key roles in this novel. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMr. Dolphus Raymond, a man who pretended to be a city drunk so he could be with the woman he loved. Mr. Raymond is a white man who happened to fall in love with a black woman. Tom, a black man, is found guilty because Bob Ewell, a white man, accuses him of raping his daughter; and in 1930's Maycomb, a white man's word always takes precedence over a black man's, in Maycomb County with a bottle of coke in a paper bag and he drank from it every day. “When I come to town, which is rarely, if I weave a little and drink from this sack, people will be able to say that Dolphus Raymond is in the clutches of whiskey, that's why he won't change his ways. He can't help it, that's why he lives the way he lives the way he lives" He came from a rich white family who probably had slaves in the past and he knew that if he didn't act like a drunk society would avoided for being with an African American woman and having interracial children with her However, he thought that if he acted like a city drunk no one would avoid him because he wouldn't know any better different from what was assumed to be normal. Arthur “Boo” Radley's alienation leads to countless myths and wild rumors, which are the result of society's ignorance. Scout and Jem firmly believe that “a ghost lived in the Radley house malevolent…but Jem and I [Scout] had never seen him.” Jem and Scout are one of many people in society who don't know much about Boo Radley, yet they still assume that Boo is a malevolent ghost. In general, society values gossip and myths because they derive pleasure or a sense of excitement from them, even though their assumptions may be completely wrong. Boo's alienation can also be traced back many years to an incident that shows how behavior is evaluated. When Jem and Miss Stephanie Crawford talk about Boo Radley, she states that "Boo stuck the scissors in his parents' leg, took them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities." This incident becomes quite controversial because, from Boo's behavior, he appears to be mentally unstable and a possible threat to society. This event illustrates the fact that society values good behavior and that behavior is what distinguishes an insane person from a mentally stable person. Therefore, the company quickly assumes that it still has issues to deal with, which they believe explains why.
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