Skip to main content

How do Boo Radley, Atticus, and Jem show cowardice?

Cowardice is a lack of bravery. Boo Radley, Atticus, and Jem all show bravery at some points in the story. At other points, they seem to lack bravery, so one could say they display cowardice.


Boo Radley hides away in his house, never going out when people can see him. Although readers don't know his motivations for his reclusive lifestyle except through the insight provided by his history and town gossip--or the children's imaginations--when Boo rescues Jem and brings him home, he does seem to display some cowardice. He stands in the corner in Jem's bedroom and doesn't come near or speak to the others in the room. When Scout leads him back to the bedroom before she leads him home, Boo stands over Jem with "an expression of timid curiosity on his face." If one equates timidity with cowardice, then Boo exhibits cowardice here.


Atticus is portrayed as a highly courageous character. Throughout most of the book, he shows bravery rather than cowardice. However, if one strains to find an example of cowardice for Atticus, one might point to the time that he obeys his sister and talks to Jem and Scout about "how you must try to behave like the little lady and gentleman that you are." Atticus obviously doesn't want to give his children this talk about "gentle breeding," yet he seems afraid to defy his sister's wishes in this case. As he speaks to the children, his "collar seemed to worry him." Scout concludes that "Aunt Alexandra had put him up to this, somehow." So although Atticus stands up bravely before a mad dog, a murderous mob, and a foul Bob Ewell who spits in his face, he displays some cowardice before his sister.


Perhaps the strongest example of Jem showing cowardice is when he refuses to admit to Atticus that he was in the Radleys' garden. He sneaks back to get his pants even though he knows Mr. Radley is watching from his porch with a gun. He fears disappointing his father more than he fears being shot at. He tells Scout, "Atticus ain't ever whipped me since I can remember. I wanta keep it that way." 


Cowardice is a strong term, and there may be better words to describe the reasons for Boo's, Atticus's, and Jem's behaviors. Each of them does display some lack of bravery, however, as depicted in these incidents.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more