Over time the legend disintegrated into nothing more than a myth, for the young mockingbird was just a troubled soul.  As years passed his pleas for help were no longer heard; they were  a piece of history and weren’t to be reckoned with.  The mysterious tale thrives through the wondering minds of the children of Maycomb.  Blurred memories echoed through the town…was Boo still alive?

"Six-and-a-half feet tall, dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, his hands were blood-stained; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time"(19)  The gruesome descriptions of the monster, Boo Radley had became had spiked the curiosity of many.  Rumors spread quicker than a jack rabbit in front of a prairie fire, and the story twisted into a falsehood; the truth vanished.  The injudicious people of Maycomb hadn’t any idea that they were killing a mockingbird.  For Boo was only disguised as a blue jay, concealed by lies of the prejudice citizens. 

A mockingbird is an innocent, harmless creature that does nothing more than sing beautiful songs, but is also a mimic, capable of imitating the songs of other birds and even certain nonhuman sounds. Boo Radley does not mimic the actions of other human beings, but many residents of Maycomb perceive him as if he did.  Boo does not have a character of his own, only the personality he has portrayed.    

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,"(32) Atticus states.  Thus illustrating the perception that until you live a day in the life of Boo Radley you can’t judge his past; he doesn’t live in the past anymore. 

Furthermore the people of Maycomb may see Boo as a terrifying monster but inside he is just a timid phantom.  He exists but isn't seen by most people, rather hidden from the outside world; when he does come out of his house he sneaks around, unnoticed.  Some may call him an outcast but he is only a hesitant ghost, regretting his mistake that cost him his trust with others.  In fact, as his name suggests, Boo Radley represents the presence of an ethereal creature in a town of ordinary folk. In spite of the harsh judgment, Boo is ghostly in the sense that he is a good soul who is invisible to the flawed world around him.

The story ends with the reading of a book by Atticus, The Grey Ghost, another symbol perhaps for Boo Radley, whose "face was as white as his hands and his grey eyes were so colourless" (276), a description fitting to one of a ghost. Before she falls asleep Scout describes the story which happens to be about someone falsely accused of doing something he never did, exactly like Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, the two mockingbirds of the story so wrongly treated by others. The closing of the novel with another symbol for the two victims of human malice suggests the power Harper Lee sees in symbolism, which carries the message better than words. "In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better”(J.P.S. Haldane).  Perhaps this is the reason Harper Lee chooses to declare her rejection of prejudice and racism through the use of symbols -- because they are more effective than words.