In the book, To Kill a Mockeningbird by Harper lee, Charles Baker Harris, also known as Dill, is one of the most important character. He’s curious, wants attention, and he can be dishonest.
One of the first characteristics seen in Dill is his curious nature. For example, the reader sees curiosity first when Scout and Jem are talking to Dill about the Radley’s, “The more we told Dill about the Radleys, the more he wanted to know, the longer he would stand hugging the light pole on the corner, the more he would wonder.” (15) By using this quote it shows how Dill’s curiosity struck by hugging the pole and starting to wonder, so now by them telling Dill more about the Radely’s it began his curiosity. Also another time that the reader can see his curiosity is when Scout is saying, “Dill and Jem were simply going to peep in the window with the loose shutter to see if they could get a look at Boo Radley, and if I didn’t want to go with them I could go straight home and keep my fat flopping mouth shut, that was all.”(69) This shows how there curiosity led them up to going to peek inside the window. Than by their curiosity they tale Scout if she didn’t approve of it than she should just go home and keep her mouth shut. Even though he was curious it didn’t stop there.
His second charateristics is him needing attention. The first time the reader see that he is needing attention is when Dill said, “Mr. Finch don’t tell Aunt Rachel, don’t make me go back, please sir! I’ll run of again!”(188) This quote shows how Dill is just wanting attention. Somebody who would say they’ll run away again just wants attention. Another time that the reader sees that he is needing attention is when Scout and Dill are talking, when Dill tells Scout, “The thing is, what I’m tryin’ to say is they do get on a lot better without me, I can’t help them any. They ain’t mean. They buy me everything I want, but it’s now-you’ve-got-it-go-play-with-it. You’ve got a roomful of things. I-got-you-that-book-so-go-read-it.”(191) By using this quote it shows how he’s wanting attention by wanting affection by his new parents. By the tone of this quote the reader can tale that Dill is filling upset that all he wants is attention.
In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout Finch demonstrates the character trait of ignorance in multiple occasions. First off, in the beginning of the book where Dill was first introduced, Scout’s traits were also introduced. Jem and Scout were asking Dill general questions and talking about Dracula. Scout realized that Dill had not mentioned a father “...I asked Dill where his father was: “You ain’t said anything about him.”
Scout learned a number of things in the book, but most of them all refer back to a statement that Atticus and Calpurnia said, which goes, “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is sing their hearts our for us.” (Lee, pg. 90). Scout learned that about people, too. She learned that some people don’t do anything to you, so it would be a sin to do something mean in return. Over the course of the story Scout becomes more mature and learns the most important facts of life. She was living through a very difficult time and most of that helped her get through.
One of the principal aims of To Kill a Mockingbird is to subject the narrator to a series of
In Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" shows and teaches many lessons throughout the passage. Some characters that learn lessons in this passage are Scout, Jem, and Dill. Scout and Jems father Atticus, is taking a case that affects their lives in so many ways. They all learn new things throughout the story and it impacts their lives greatly. There are lots of things including the trial mostly that change the perspective of the world they live in. The kids are living in the Great Depression and it shows just how bad things really where. Scout, Jem, and Dill have experiences that force them to mature and gain new insight.
In the first part of To Kill a Mockingbird Dill is very outgoing. The first time we meet Dill is when he meets Jem and Scout. The first thing he says to the kids
Jem’s perception of bravery has changed throughout the course of the book. His maturity is a result of Atticus’s actions around him. At the beginning of the book, Jem is dared by his neighbour Dill to touch the door of the Radley’s; the Radley house symbolizes fear in the minds of the children. Jem does so thinking the act is courageous while Scout remarks, “In all his life, Jem had never declined a dare.” This shows that like most children, Jem is often more idealistic than realistic. His reactions are instinctive and often unplanned and reckless.
Childhood is a continuous time of learning, and of seeing mistakes and using them to change your perspectives. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how two children learn from people and their actions to respect everyone no matter what they might look like on the outside. To Kill A Mockingbird tells a story about two young kids named Scout and her older brother Jem Finch growing up in their small, racist town of Maycomb, Alabama. As the years go by they learn how their town and a lot of the people in it aren’t as perfect as they may have seemed before. When Jem and Scout’s father Atticus defends a black man in court, the town’s imperfections begin to show. A sour, little man named Bob Ewell even tries to kill Jem and Scout all because of the help Atticus gave to the black man named Tom Robinson. Throughout the novel, Harper Lee illustrates the central theme that it is wrong to judge someone by their appearance on the outside, or belittle someone because they are different.
Scout starts to understand people’s needs, opinions, and their points of view. In the beginning, Scout does not really think much about other people’s feelings, unless it directly pertains to her. Jem and Dill decided to create a play based on the life of one of their neighbors, Boo Radley. According to neighborhood rumors, Boo got into a lot of trouble as a kid, stabbed his father with scissors, and never comes out of the house. The children create a whole drama and act it out each day. “As the summer progressed, so did our game. We polished and perfected it, added dialogue and plot until we had manufactured a small play among which we rang changes every day” (Lee 52). Scout turned Boo’s life into a joke, something for her entertainment. She did not think about how Boo would feel if he knew what they were doing. Near the end of the book, while Boo was at the Finch house, Scout led him onto the porc...
So, one day the children took the time with Dill to search on his property to see if he can come out of his house. However, Scout was nervous and asked Jem to not go along with it. In addition, they all went on the Radley’s place and got a rude awakening. They got shot at by Nathan Radley. With that, irony was being presented. The children thought they would not be able to escape. However, a shotgun was not a joke in the matter and they barely made it out alive. With their rare escape of going under the gate and running back home, Jem had to go back to fetch his pants. Thinking from Scout’s point of view that Jem will be harmed in this action, Jem came back fully alive and with his pants. All of a sudden, Jem realizes that his pants were waiting for him, folded and ready for him to take it back then it being back on the gate stuck when he tried to escape for his life. “He came up the back steps, latched the door behind him, and sat on his cot. Wordlessly, he held up his pants. He lay down, and for a while I heard his cot trembling.” (Harper Lee 76) With what had just happened with these children, that was one the scariest moments to have happened. How ironic that they all survived when they could have been dead on the property of the Radley’s
“Next stop Maycomb Junction,” the conductor shouted. Everything went quiet. All of a sudden the whistles started to wail, and the train hissed. Eventually the gentle rumble of the tracks was all that could be heard. Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird is a heartwarming novel about prejudice, family, and the innocence of a child. Every summer a boy, hailing from Meridian, Mississippi, takes a train to the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. This boy is Charles Baker Harris, although most people just call him Dill. Through the pages of the classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the Character Dill shows that he is an imaginative, lonely, and innocent character as seen through many of his actions and ideas during this truly amazing and moral adventure.
Throughout the book, Lee shows how Scout, Jem, and Dill mature through the actions and situations around them. One example is when Scout makes the connection about the mockingbird sin: When Scout and Jem first got air rifles for Christmas, they were told they could shoot all the birds they wanted, except mockingbirds because it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. The reason it was a sin, as explained by Miss Maudie on page 94, was because “mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy”. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
Lee employs the mockingbird and the sin of its death to develop two key characters, the plot sequence and an important theme of her novel. Boo Radley emerges as the first of Lee’s mockingbirds because he not only leaves gifts for the children, but also protects Scout with a blanket after the fire at Miss Maudie’s house and, ultimately, saves the children’s lives. He may live a secluded life, but he only brings joy to Jem and Scout. Similarly, Tom Robinson resembles a mockingbird since he is an innocent man who simply tries to help Mayella with her chores because he feels “’sorry for her ‘” (264). In fact, Scout observes that Robinson’s manners are “as good as Atticus’s” (260), and Link Deas acknowledges that when Tom worked for him, he ‘”ain’t had a speck o’trouble outa him’”(261). In addition to developing these two characters as mockingbirds, Lee employs the mockingbird in several plot sequences. After the children are given air rifles for Christmas and are warned not to shoot at mockingbirds, the bird is not mentioned again until Mr. Underwood’s editorial in which he compares the killing of Tom Robinson to “ the senseless slaughter of songbirds” (323). Indeed the senseless shooting of the
As Dill, states, “I'm Charles Baker Harris. I can read. I can read anything you've got.” Dill Harris states this quote too Jem and Scout when they first met. Dill is considered a minor character not only because there is not an abundance of information to remember. Dill is a minor character because in the book his negative home life and complications with his mother are explained in detail. While in the movie, Dill is underdeveloped because you never learn about the complications. The absence of Miss Rachel in the movie turns into Stephanie Crawford being Dill’s aunt. This is easier to understand because it limits characters, and helps shorten the movie. The minor characters are important because they help bring out the main characters. Forcing two personalities, together helps bring out the full detail of the plot and shortens the film making it easier to understand. Even though both main characters and minor characters are important, in the story the themes are understandable. The themes are understandable because they are both majorly implied in both the book and the movie. As Atticus, explains, “Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember
Jem takes part in the game with Boo Radley’s house. This demonstrates his lack of knowledge about many things in the world. He displays a strong sense of innocence throughout the story, but, unlike Boo Radley, he was not a mockingbird throughout the entire story. He developed into one later on. All of the children can be seen as mockingbirds, but I think that Jem and Dill have a stronger importance to the outcome of the story than Scout does. In some scenes, Scout is the strongest and most mature of the children, even though Jem is the oldest. She takes Dill out of the courtroom when he is uncontrollably crying, and she comforts him. I also see Jem and Scout as having a symbolic importance to the story because they have the last name “Finch”. A “Finch” is a type of bird. It is a songbird, just like a mockingbird. There is a lot of symbolism all throughout the book. I think that an overall recurring theme that I saw in the book is that of innocence, and how easily it can be destroyed. Mockingbirds are songbirds, and they just fly around singing, causing no
Another way Scout changed a lot was in the way she treated Boo Radley. At the beginning of the book Jem, Dill, and herself enjoyed playing "Boo Radley" as a game and tormenting him by trying to have a chance to see him or prove their bravery by touching the house. As time went on, Scout's fears and apprehensions regarding the Radley place slowly disappeared. She mentions how "the Radley Place had ceased to terrify me (her)..." As she matures and is more able to take care of herself, she realizes more and more that Boo Radley is a human being, just like herself.