Theme of Neglect in To Kill A Mockingbird and The Nickel Boys

Last year the United States announced 4.4 million cases of child maltreatment, and those are just the reported instances. In prisons today 14% of men and 36% of women have experienced child abuse or neglect (americanspcc.org). These numbers are close to double that of the national average. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, these ideas of childhood abuse are explored in depth; abused youth do have a harder time than others when maturing into adulthood. 

Early into To Kill a Mockingbird we are introduced to the character Arthur “Boo” Radley. Boo was heavily neglected throughout his childhood. Throughout the story we only hear of Boo, it is not until much later that the reader will finally see him. “His face was as white as his hands, but for a shadow on his jutting chin. His cheeks were thin to hollowness; his mouth was wide; there were shallow, almost delicate indentations at his temple, and his gray eyes were so colorless I thought he was blind” (Lee 310). Boo, now a grown adult, is ghost-like and almost completely mute. This can be attributed to his abusive and neglectful childhood. “Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight, but Jem figured that Mr. Radley kept him chained to the bed most of the time. Atticus said no, it wasn’t that sort of thing, that there were other ways of making people into ghosts” (Lee 12). Boo’s abuse may stem from his father’s religious sector, one which takes every word of the Bible literally. “But sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of-- oh, your father” (Lee 50).

 In the story The Nickel Boys we follow two characters, Elwood and Turner. The only one who makes it to adulthood, Turner, struggles heavily with escaping his abusive past. We see him having to learn what his younger self should have. “Is this what normal husbands do---buy flowers for no reason? All these years out of that school and he still spent a segment of his days trying to decipher the customs of normal people” (Whitehead 190). Turner is later confronted by his past in the shape of another former student. This student, Chickie Pete, relays the stories of the grown up Nickel students. “Chickie mentioned the Nickel Boys he ran into over the years---Sammy, Nelson, Lonnie. This one was a crook, that one lost an arm in Vietnam, another one was strung out” (Whitehead 165). Turner in an inner monologue reveals the way he views Nickel, and how it continues to affect the students all these decades later. “That’s what the school did to a boy. It didn’t stop when you got out. Bend you all kind of ways until you were unfit for straight life, good and twisted by the time you left” (Whitehead 165). 

While To Kill a Mockingbird and The Nickel Boys so far have approached abuse differently, one factor they both share is that of lying and fear of confrontation. In To Kill a Mockingbird Mayella Ewell, daughter of the main antagonist, is called to trial and lies to defend him.This is likely out of fear for her safety. “ ‘What did your father see in the window, the crime of rape or the best defense to it? Why don’t you tell the truth, child, didn’t Bob Ewell beat you up?’ When Atticus turned away from Mayella he looked like his stomach hurt, but Mayella’s face was a mixture of terror and fury” (Lee 213). This is also shown by Turner, when instead of confronting his past he takes on a new life, going as far as to lie to his wife. “The nightmares that tormented him, the ones he claimed not to remember---she knew his reform school had been bad but she didn’t know it had been this place… Who was he? He was him, the man he had always been. She 

told him that she understood, as much as she was able to understand that first night” (Whitehead 206). 

The characters of Boo and Turner share another factor, overcoming the odds and bettering themselves. Boo, neglected throughout his youth, is able to empathize with and save Jem and Scout from danger. “It was slowly coming to me that there were now four people under the tree… the man was walking heavily and unsteadily toward the road” (Lee 300). This can be exhibited in Turner when it is revealed what his wife thinks of his lie. “His name didn’t matter. The lie was big but she understood it, given how the world had crumpled him up, the more she took in his story. To come out of that place and make something of himself, to become a man capable of loving her the way he did, to become the man she loved--- his deception was nothing compared to what he had done with his life” (Whitehead 206).

To Kill a Mockingbird and The Nickel Boys both perfectly exhibit how it is difficult, but not impossible, for abused youths to become successful adults. Turner, while having at the end of The Nickel Boys, is still haunted by his time at the Nickel academy and suffers from PTSD symptoms. Boo Radley, a hero at the end of the story, is still a deeply disturbed man. Finally, Mayella Ewell is a young girl who lies to protect her abuser. The countless Nickel students who were not as fortunate as Turner lead broken and distraught lives. The characters throughout both novels still suffer heavily for their past. This trauma is something that no child or adult should ever have to experience. In whole, these stories show the disadvantaged and difficult futures these abused children are stepping into.