What similarities exist between Tom and Boo which make them both become victims of their community in To Kill a...

Both Boo and Tom have deficiencies which make them
outcasts from much of Maycomb's tight-knit society. Boo's mental instability has
relegated him to forced reclusiveness within his own home. Rumors about him are well
known (Boo, too, must know about them), and most of the town fears him. Tom is an
outcast from white society simply because he is black; his crippled arm serves as a
deformity much in the same way as Boo's mental state. Rumors about Tom also fly about
town, since most white people are willing to accept the word of the Ewell's version of
the attack without question simply because a white man's word is always taken over that
of a black man. Maycomb's black citizens know Tom to be an honest family man, but white
people now fear him because of the accusations against him. As in the cases of both Tom
and Boo, none of the rumors are true.