g but being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To Kill a Mockingbird contains criticism of the prejudice and moral laziness that allowed Southern society to have a double standard of justice. Boo Radley, the eccentric recluse in To Kill a Mocking Bird is another "harmless creature" who becomes a victim of cruelty. Here again, the author seems to be emphasizing the universality of human nature. Tom Robinson's problems may be bound up with the complex social problem of racial prejudice, but any neighborhood can have its Boo Radley, all but forgotten except as the subject of gossip and rumor. By the final chapters of the novel, we learn that good and justice do not necessarily triumph every time. Harmless individuals such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley can become victims through no fault of their own. And sometimes "the system" can do nothing to defend them. Boo Radley’s situation is similar to that of the man in the poem A Negro Labourer in Liverpool.I stared;Our eyes metBut on his dark Negro faceNo sunny smile,No hope or a longing for a hope promised;Only the quick cowed dart of eyesPiercing through impassive crowdsSearching longingly for a faceThat might flicker understandingTragic, isn’t it? A man comes from his motherland with new hope, only to be disappointed. No one cares, and his hope “lies in the shovel.”In Hamilton’s novel, Anthony Burns, the same injustice is evident throughout. “He can’t get away, thought, y’know. He can’t escape the fate he’s born to,was the statement made regarding Anthony Burns, the fugitive slave, and the hero of the book. He, like his Negro slave family of 14 children, and like countless other Negroes in the 1800s were born into injustice and cruelty. He was whipped and half starved to death in the early parts of his life, and was unable to even enjoy some of life’s simplest things, which many of us take for granted. Did he do anything to...
