In the novel “ To kill a mockingbird” By Harper Lee there are many characters who are social outcasts in the story. These characters give us an understanding of the storyline and help develop ideas about other characters. These characters are brilliantly crafted to create parts of the setting and show the true injustices of the town. The three social outcasts i will be using for examples are the Ewell family, Dolphus Raymond and the entire black community. All these characters in the story have completely different reactions to being social outcasts and reasons for being apart of the storyline. The Ewell family were the “white trash” of Maycomb county. They were hugely affected by the great depression and lived beyond the dump nearing into …show more content…
the black community. The ewell family consisted of Bob Ewell, a miserable excuse of a man who spent any family money on alcohol, leaving his eldest daughter, Mayella Ewell 19 at the time, to look after her 7 younger siblings and look after the house. All kids were under educated and unmotivated to learn as they would show up to the first day of school each year to never return until the following year (which was enforced by the truancy officers). The family’s undesirable attitudes and distasteful way of living had earn them the title of “ The disgrace of Maycomb for three generations” and very little respect from the other townspeople. They develop the storyline by accusing black man, Tom Robinson, of abusing and raping Mayella Ewell. The intentions of this was to gain sympathy and respect from the community to start climbing the social hierarchy again by taking advantage of the racial injustice of Maycomb as they know the town would take a white man's word against a black man's word. However, this completely backfired as it became obvious to the town in the trial that Tom Robinson was infact innocent of the horrid crimes he had been accused of despite still being ruled as a guilty verdict. The use of the Ewells in the story is to support evidence of the poverty and racial injustice which was known in that era. The racial injustice was phenomenal in Maycomb county. It was set just after the releasing and legalisation of black slaves in the southern hemisphere, yet the negroes were still thought to be inferior to the rest of the community. The entire black community was out past the dump just beyond the Ewells farm and was poorly treated by the white people. For Example, when Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to the coloured church it becomes clear that the church has no funds for hymnals so they sing along by echoing Zeebo as he reads from their only hymnal. It is also told that on weekdays the church is used as a place for gambling by the white people showing the disrespect the whites showed towards the negroes. Although there was no reason given for the behaviour portrayed by the white community the negroes accepted the fact that it was just the way it was and never rebelled or did anything to change injustice against them. The idea of the segregated black community in this time has a major development of the storyline and gives an explanation as to why the jury’s final verdict was guilty at the end of Tom Robinson’s case even though there was no justice whatsoever behind the reasoning. Dolphus Raymond was a social outcast of maycomb due to the fact that he had a negro family and preferred the company of the black community.
The use of Dolphus Raymond’s character was primarily to develop an understanding and compliment Atticus Finch’s character. He and atticus both saw the injustice in the town against it’s own people and came from similar backgrounds in Finch’s landing. However, despite having a highly respected family and an abundance of wealth behind him Dolphus didn’t have the courage to stand up for what he believed and never fought for what he believed. Instead he took the easy path out by giving the white community an excuse for his abnormal behaviour of willingly living in the black community by pretending he was a drunk. "I try to give 'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason... folks can say Dolphus Raymond's in the clutches of whiskey--that's why he won't change his ways... that's why he lives the way he does." He does this to protect himself and his family even though he could have made a change in the way the whole town think and start to unravel them out of their racist ways by exposing the injustice that goes on if he had the mental strength and courage to do so. In comparison this makes Atticus seem very admirable to have the courage to stand up for a member of the black community in court who was wrongly accused. When Atticus made the decision to do that he knew full well the dangers he would be putting himself and his family into but chose to do it for the greater good anyway because he believed it needed to be done and that no one else would do
it. In conclusion although these outcasts were not the main characters they had a major impact in giving a clear understanding of the novel and character development. The different ways they reacted to their situations showed how strong the black community was, even though underprivileged they were themselves and managed to accept and move on with their situation too make the most of it keeping a positive attitude whereas Dolphus Raymond was too cowardly to upset the townspeople so pretended to be a drunk and gave himself an excuse for being himself and being with the people he wanted to be with. Finally the Ewells showed how appalling and undignified they handled the situation by trying to grip onto the hope that they would be accepted by the town after making false accusations against a black man because they knew it was a fight they couldn’t lose. However, in the end it was the Black community that was given the hope things would change after the jury took so long to decide and the disgusting Ewells who were left in the gutter. This sends a message that keeping a positive attitude and standing up for what you believe gets a better result than pushing someone into a fight because you know they don’t have a chance because when people start to see right through you, you’ll end up right back where you started. Whereas if you work hard for something no one can take that away from you.
Harper Lee uses the outsiders motif to illustrate how societies are immobilized when people are constantly judging others based on appearances. Because of differences in wealth, race, education, and health, many long-lasting untrue stereotypes are created about outsiders. To Kill a Mockingbird still holds contemporary value to readers and to all of humanity because it is a powerful novel that teaches the ugly truth of prejudice and discrimination that still exists today. This is important because it can cause others to realize the problems in everyday society, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, and encourage people to change their hearts then change the
There 's a point in everyone 's life when people are forced to wear a mask to hide their true selves. People want to fit into what they think is normal. Most of the time, the individual behind the mask is very different from what they are being perceived as. They can be evil and wicked, or they can be smart, loving, and caring. Characters in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird written by Harper Lee live through the Great Depression and Segregation. They all have qualities that make them unique in their own ways. In the town of Maycomb, Alabama, citizens are put under stereotypes all throughout the novel. Characters get assigned labels that aren 't entirely correct. Dolphus Raymond, Mayella Ewell, and Boo Radley are all products of what it looks
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird three characters, Scout, Jem, and Atticus Finch, experience the many hardships and difficulties of human inequality in their community, Maycomb County. Scout, the narrator, gives insight to readers about the many different characters of Maycomb, yet two are alike in many ways. Mayella Ewell is a 19-year-old girl who is considered white trash and lacks education, love, and friends. Dolphus Raymond is a wealthy white man who is married to an African-American and has mixed children. Although these characters may seem different, they share many of the same advantages and disadvantages of human inequality.
Everyone essentially lives in their own little fishbowl, surrounded by friends, family, co-workers, etc. All these people influence the way we are judged and perceived. One action and your reputation can go from shining gold to rusty brown. The two novels, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie put this idea into context. Both novels have characters that break the social norms by using courage to overcome racial obstacles.
One of the values of Maycomb is racism. However, there are a few that does not believe in this value, including Mr. Dolphus Raymond. Mr. Dolphus Raymond is a white man married to a black woman and has mixed children. He does not believe in society’s ideology regarding racism and knows that some citizens of Maycomb antagonize him. However, he does not care, as he prefers the colored people over white. He knows how unfair society is, from the way he gets treated. Moreover, Jem realizes the falsities of society, due to the injustice he sensed. After Tom’s verdict, Jem’s first clear sense of injustice provided a new perception on the world. When he was young, he believed that the people of Maycomb are the best folks, but the outcome of the trial changed this thought. Furthermore, Scout’s realization of the falsehood in society is with the hypocrisy of Miss Gates. She was taught by Miss Gates how Americans do not believe in persecution. However, Scout saw Miss Gates talk about the African Americans in an adverse way. Learning about the falsehood in society is part of
The world is and has always been categorized by many different aspects including the amount of income someone receives, or the color of someone’s skin. These categories are broken up into several different Socio-Economic classes, determined by the economic conditions of someone. People tend to judge and disrespect others of different class rank or race. Whichever class someone belongs to determines the lifestyle and standard of living of the individual. Not only are social class differences a big part in classifying today’s world, but social class differences were of greater impact on the people of the in the south during the 1930s. There are many different ways to categorize the people of the 1930s south and apply those categories to movies
Dolphus Raymond is known for preferring Black people rather than White and the father of three mixed children. For his reputation, he drinks Coca-cola in a paper bag disguised as an alcoholic drink and pretends to be drunk. He intends to do this so that people would excuse him for “betraying” his own race. The Coca-cola represents his non-racism and fair judgment towards Black people. The beverage, however, is placed inside a paper bag. This hints that he has no intention changing the society but show his lack of racism and his wish to live in peace with his family. He and Atticus both dissent from the rules of segregation in their society. Atticus, in contrast, takes the initiative on changing the society by taking Tom Robinson’s case. In
How would you like it if someone walked up to you and berated you based on the color of your skin? A characteristic like that isn’t even something you can control, so an insult of that nature can leave one furious and oppressed. Discrimination is inevitable in any culture, throughout history, in modern times, and even in ancient times. For example, the oppression and murder of 6 million Jewish people during the Holocaust, the African Slave Trade which occurred for multiple centuries, and more recently, the “ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya people in Myanmar, brought on by the government of the Asian nation, all of which are tragedies doomed to happen when history repeats itself and people do not learn
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, many different themes come into view. One major theme that played a big role in the character’s lives is racial prejudice. Racism is an unending problem throughout the book. The song “Message from a Black Man” by The Temptations has many similarities to the theme of racial discrimination. Therefore, both the novel and the song prove that racism was a great obstacle for some people at a point.
To Kill A Mockingbird is a dramatic story about human behavior- cruelty, love, compassion, and hatred. The sweet family of 3 lives in the Southern town of Maycomb County. Atticus, the father, Scout Finch, and Scout’s brother, Jem. The Finch family lives in the time period of the Great Depression. Atticus still has his job as a lawyer and that’s when he realizes one of the greater themes of the story- The Existence of Social Inequality.
Harper Lee has a number of characters that contribute to the novel and violent scenes in To Kill a Mockingbird, some that have meaning and some that do not. Some characters that appear often and some that have a minimal role in being seen in the novel, but the characters that do not appear often seem to have the biggest impact on the novel. There are three characters that are looked down on by society around them, one because of race and two because of their morals. Society disregarded these people simply because they were afraid that they could be like them and the unknown. Lee uses violence and alienation to help depict the things that are wrong within the small society.
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird expresses the ideology that the social standard of a particular individual, classifies their status in the world. Individuals placed in social classes are labeled to create a sense of social identity. The socio-economic class an individual is born into should not be the determining factor of how the individual is regarded and treated, however, their character and personality should be a primary factor in determining how they are thought of in society.
After reading chapter 16 of To Kill a Mockingbird, the reader is introduced to two new characters. First, we are introduced to a character named Dolphus Raymond. Dolphus is a wealthy white male after the death of his wife he tricked the Maycomb townspeople into believing he is an alcoholic and is now living at the other side of maycomb with his colored wife and mixed children. I think Lee purpose of putting Raymond in the story is to show readers that not all white people hated black people. Raymond is one of the few people who enjoins black people company. He moved to the other side of maycomb to live with them because “ he likes ‘em better’n he likes us.” he also has some mixed children of his own. According to Jem most people do most want
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird a major theme is that sometimes being an individual challenges society’s values and views. In the novel, Dolphus Raymond had an interracial family that many of the people of Maycomb couldn’t come to terms with. While the people of Maycomb gathered in the courtroom, Dolphus Raymond was spotted, “...He’s got a colored women and all sorts of mixed chillun” (Lee 214). Later in the same scene Jem says he lives like that because “ That’s just his way…” (Lee 215). Families in Maycomb were so confused by his love for his black family that they even made a fictional reason behind Raymond’s alternative lifestyle. The reason surpassed just being that way, many of the people in town believed that Dolphus was an evil
All men are created equal. Although many believe this statement to be true, some do not. I’d like to believe that as a species, we have grown not just physically but mentally. Unfortunately, while we have gotten better, we’re not quite there yet. In 2018, acts of racism and discrimination are occurring as we speak. As we look back at our history and learn every year about events that we, as young adults of this generation, couldn’t possibly stop, we need to realize the fact that in order to completely mature and grow as human beings, we must learn from the past, and the only way to learn about it is to read about it. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird conveys this message with little to no mistakes.