We often don' like to trust things that we don't understand. It's frightening, our fear of the unknown. In Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird", Arthur Radley, or Boo as Jem and Scout call him, is very much unknown through a good part of the book. In the first half of the book he is never seen by Scout, Dill, or Jem, so they fear him. They create up stories of what happened to him, and listen to Miss Stephanie Crawford, the neighborhood gossip, to hear her various tales about the Radleys. Jem and Scout are curious about Arthur 'Boo' Radley, but are still very afraid of him, just because they don't know him. When we distrust something, or someone, we usually are afraid of taking a risk with them, and so fear would be the basis of the trust, or lack there of, which is why people don't like things they don't understand.
"To Kill A Mockingbird" starts with the narrator, Scout Finch, telling us about how her brother broke his arm. The plot quickly unravels from there and it tells of Scout and Jem's childhood, filled with events that circulate around the mysteriousness of the Radleys. '" Touch the house, that all?" Dill nodded, "Sure that's all, now? I don't want you hollerin' something different the minute I get back." "Yeah, that's all," said Dill. "He'll probably come out after you when he sees you in the yard, the Scout n' me'll jump on him and hold him down till we can tell him we ain't gonna hurt him" . . . Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful. Dill and I followed on his heels. Safely on our porch, panting and out of breath, we looked back. The old house was the same, droopy and sick, but as we stared down the street we though we saw an inside shutter move. Flick. A tiny, almost invisible movement, and the house was still."' In that scene, Dill first dared Jem to make Arthur Radley come out, but Jem was afraid, so he kept saying he'd think about it. When Dill grew tired of this, he dared Jem to just touch the house, and Jem agreed, but he was extremely afraid. The only reason he was afraid was because of the stories that had been told about Arthur Radley. Jem was afraid that Arthur was going to catch him, or something similar. He was only afraid because he didn't know what Arthur would do, if anything.
Throughout the book Jem and Scout are afraid of Arthur Radley, and during a boring summer day they were doing one of their typical activities: performing play-like-things. Usually they would play something like Tarzan but this time, Jem had something else in mind. He wanted to play the Radleys. '"Boo Radley? How?" asked Dill. Jem said, "Scout, you can be Mrs. Radley-" "I declare if I will. I don't think-" "Smatter?" said Dill. "Still Scared?" "He can get out at night when we're all asleep...." I said.' The theme, "People often distrust what they do not understand", is almost perfectly illustrated here. Scout does not understand Arthur Radley, or the game Jem wants to play, so she is afraid. She's afraid the someway, somehow, Arthur Radley is going to find out that they are playing the game., and get them in the middle of the night. The only reason she is afraid is because she doesn't know what is going to be the consequences of playing the game.
While Arthur Radley is one of the main people/things that are unknown and misunderstood in the first half of the book, another character that appears and strikes fear into the heart of Calpurnia and a few other characters is a dog, Tim Johnson. '" Mr. Finch!" she shouted. "This is Cal. I swear to God there's a mad dog down the street a piece- he's comin' this way, yes sir, he's- Mr. Finch, I declare he is- old Tim Johnson, yes sir... yessir... yes-" She hung up and shook her head when we tried to ask her what Atticus had said. Throughout the book so far, very few things, almost nothing, have scared Calpurnia. However, when the mad dog comes walking down the street, she is very afraid and worried. She is afraid of what the dog will do. When the dog is put down though, she feels a little bit better, simply because the risk was taken out of the way.
People often distrust what they don't understand, and this is true in everyday life. "To Kill A Mockingbird portrays this theme many times throughout the book, and we relate to it because we have experienced it. It strikes home, whether about yourself, family, or friends, and it can frighten us quite a bit.
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