How does Bob Ewell die in To Kill a Mockingbird?

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Book cover for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, featuring a silhouette of a child under a tree and a large moon, with the title in script and — To Kill a Mockingbird This book cover is one of many given to Harper Lee's classic work *To Kill a Mockingbird* (1960). The novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and the next year was made into an Academy Award-winning film.

In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Bob Ewell dies during an attack on Scout and Jem Finch. When Ewell attempts to harm the children, the town recluse, Arthur “Boo” Radley, intervenes and kills him.12

To protect the reclusive Boo Radley from the unwanted public attention that would follow such an event, the sheriff, Heck Tate, decides to report that Ewell died accidentally after falling on his own knife. Scout ultimately agrees with this decision, recognizing that exposing Boo’s heroic act would be akin to "shootin’ a mockingbird," a metaphor for destroying innocence.12