Arthur Radley, whom
the children referred to as "", had emerged from his home for the first and only time
in the novel when he realized the children were in danger, and killed Bob Ewell before Ewell
could kill the kids--which he fully intended to do, having insinuated it within earshot of some
townspeople in the weeks after the trial. The significance of this lies in Arthur Radley's
knowledge of the children's impending danger--he knew they were in danger because he had been
watching them from within his home, where he had been more or less imprisoned for years. He had
laughed at their hijinks, repaired 's pants when Jem lost them in an ill-conceived adventure to
look into the Radley home, left them little gifts in the hole in a tree (until his brother
cruelly filled the hole with cement), covered 's shoulders with a blanket when she stood
freezing on the street as Miss Maudie's house burned down--and finally, as the kids returned
alone on that dark Halloween, he somehow knew they were being followed and was able to get to
them, and Ewell, before Ewell could carry out his drunken, crazed plan. When Radley carries Jem
into the house, no one is surprised to see him except Scout, when she figures out who he is. It
is an interesting and somewhat sadto the even sadder story of Arthur Radley. In fact, Scout
says as much when she reflects on the things Arthur had given them over the years:
Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and
chain, a pair of good luck pennies and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put
back into the tree what we took out of it; we had given him nothing, and it made me
sad.
There is also someworth noting in Boo's saving the
children, because when they first become aware of him, at the novel's beginning three years
prior, they are terribly frightened of him and what they have heard about him. Thus, his
returning Jem to safety at the novel's conclusion creates a kind of full-circle, and dramatic
ending to the novel.
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