What type of conflicts (character vs. character, etc.) do Scout and Jem face as a result of Maycomb's rumors about Boo Radley in Harper Lee's To...

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem face both external and internal conflicts as they deal with Maycomb's rumors concerning Arthur (Boo) Radley.At first, due to rumors, Scout and Jem see their neighbor Arthur as a threat, someone to fear, which is why they call him Boo. Because they see him as a threat, they see him as someone to stay away from. For example, when Jem, at Dill's...

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem face both external and internal conflicts as they deal with Maycomb's rumors concerning Arthur (Boo) Radley.

At first, due to rumors, Scout and Jem see their neighbor Arthur as a threat, someone to fear, which is why they call him Boo. Because they see him as a threat, they see him as someone to stay away from. For example, when Jem, at Dill's urging, invents the game called "Boo Radley" in which they enact all the rumors and myths they have learned concerning Arthur's life, Scout protests the safety of such a game, saying, "He can get out at night when we're all asleep ...," showing us that the children have to believe that Arthur poses a threat to their lives and is someone to stay away from (Ch. 4). Anytime a character fears another character, we can call this a character vs. character conflict.

However, the conflicts concerning Scout, Jem and Arthur Radley go a bit deeper than that. Both children have a powerful urge to learn the truth about what Arthur is really like; their urge is so strong that it overwhelms their better natures. For example, at Dill's urging, Jem begins pulling foolish stunts to assuage his curiosity such as sneaking on to the Radley property to try and deliver a note to Arthur via fishing pole or to try and get a look at Arthur through a window at night. Both stunts were foolish because, as Atticus warns later in Chapter 26, Mr. Nathan [Radley] shoots "at every shadow he sees," just like he shot at the children's shadows when he thought they were the shadows of a person trying to steal his vegetables. Since sneaking on to the Radley property to try to assuage their curiosity is dangerous, their stunts show that their curiosity has overwhelmed their better natures that are ruled by logic, common sense, and respect for their fellow human beings. An internal conflict occurs when a character struggles with two opposing forces inside of the character, such as the character's good nature vs. the character's bad nature. Therefore, we can call Scout's and Jem's conflict between their curiosity vs. their more rational natures an internal conflict.