Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee - 1568 Words

People often fear what they don t understand. Evolutionary psychology can be traced back millions of years, when fear was avoided because of its repercussion of death. An aversion to the unknown was usually safer. Therefore, evolution culled for human traits that feared and avoided the unknown. Fear of the unknown shows how people become narrow-minded and ignorant to their surroundings, and how people behave when they believe something will happen even though they are solely intolerant. This ideology directly correlates to Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a MockingBird. Throughout the story, the townspeople attempt to overcome their various fears by turning against each other. In Maycomb, fear enforces racism and causes the townspeople to†¦show more content†¦The whites believe they know the outcome thus they become blind and oblivious to the truth. Lee utilizes the element of fear to drive the people of Maycomb’s actions in a manner that causes them to act irration ally, ultimately going against the morality that society stands by today. BODY 1 Throughout the novel, Boo Radley becomes a figure of superstition that is feared by the Finch kids because of their fear of the unknown. Think of the Disneyland, and if Maycomb were it, The Radley House would be the Haunted Mansion. â€Å"The shutters and doors of the Radley house were closed on Sundays, another thing alien to Maycomb s ways: closed doors meant illness and cold weather only† (Lee 10). The children are only afraid of the Radley house when they are ignorant about the true nature of Arthur Radley; as long as he s Boo, he s a feared entity. Local myth holds that Boo eats live squirrels and prowls the streets at night, and the children s perception of him is coloured by such tales. With this mentality of Boo Radley’s character, they believe that, â€Å"Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work† (Lee 9). Talking about the Radley’s gives the children goose bumps, however their curiosity causes them explore and play games to discover his truth. Perhaps the kids spend so much time trying to make sense of the Radley Place, and the Radley’s,