To Kill a Mockingbird revolves around human behavior and the boundaries that it facilitates. The boundaries of the quiet little town of Maycomb, Alabama are constantly tested by the games that people play. In each game, distinctions evolve. The distinctions become the rules of the game, of life, and from them, different boundaries form for each new character. With each new drama, characters and distinctions change, as do the boundaries which form them.

The "summertime boundary" introduces the first instance of boundaries. This serves as the area in which Calpurnia allows Scout and Jem to play before calling them back home for going too far. The setting of a boundary portrays what will come in the novel. The summertime boundary emerges as the area in which Scout and Jem's games take place. This also accounts for where they meet Dill, another player in their game. The main character, Boo Radley, lives next door to the Finches. None of the children have ever seen Boo, but from the image they construct emerges a vivid character. "Boo was about six and a half feet tall, judging him from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands are blood-stained - i

f you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time." (To Kill a Mockingbird, p.13). The children test his boundaries as well as their own imaginations by constructing the image. It adds to the game and encourages Jem and Scout to develop distinctions for their boundaries.

His distinctions reflect the culmination of distinctions of the generations before him. All of the games lead to final distinctions that become evident by the end of the novel. These distinctions - race, class, creed, and gender - all contain areas where the boundaries blend into each other. They become points of emergence where individual boundaries occur. The boundaries shape the person into their own distinction.

Distinctions, then, emerge as the novel proceeds. The games of Miss Gates and the ladies of Maycomb's society set tradition - based boundaries. They look back to their role - models, whose boundaries did not change and evolve with time. This leads to the prejudice apparent in the towns- ladies' distinctions, though there remains an effort at concealment of the game. The "untouchables" attempt no concealment of their game. The Ewells act out their game openly and with hostility. The price of suffering never becomes a factor in their game, which leads to harsh distinctions. Atticus also does not conceal his game, though it occurs on the opposite side of the sp

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1014
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)