Seclusion In To Kill A Mockingbird

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People are excluded from society simply because of their ethnicity or their actions. While exclusion may be a result of a wrongful crime, many exclusions stem from a lack of understanding or a narrow mindset. Harper Lee demonstrates this isolation in her novel where a child named Scout slowly learns of the difference between seclusion and exclusion. As her father defends an innocent black man in a trial that he cannot win, she begins to understand how seclusion and exclusion plays a role in Maycomb County, her hometown. In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Scout learns how both seclusion and exclusion involve the “removal” of one from society; in addition, such isolation is represented by several characters who are wrongfully accused as …show more content…

At the trial of Tom Robinson, the children meet Dolphus Raymond, a mixed-race man who is isolated from Maycomb because of his unorthodox decisions. Scout, Jem, and Dill find out that he chooses to be secluded from society and is not forced to be excluded because “it ain’t honest but it’s mighty helpful to folks… they could never, never understand that [Mr. Raymond] live[s] like [he does]... because that’s the way [he wants]... to live” (200-201). The children realize that the town’s tendency to stay with its old-fashioned ways of thinking has caused an innocent man who made unusual decisions to be excluded from society. When the children talk to him, they discover that he is actually a kind man whose reputation has been destroyed by the talk of Maycomb. Dolphus Raymond chooses to seclude himself by creating a different external image for the people of Maycomb because he believes that the town will not understand that he wishes to live the way he does. Because of his choice to allow the town to believe what they desire to assume about his life, he understands that the town cannot change what it thinks of someone after making false assumptions of that person. He decides to take on bad characteristics in order to give them a reason that he knows they will understand for his life choices. Even though these choices are not be the best for his reputation, he understands that it is better than trying to reason with the town for what he wishes to do. In addition, intolerance and rumor plays into his seclusion because the town cannot adapt to the thinking of others. The town cannot grasp the diverse ways of thinking that it should, and, consequently, the people create bad images for anyone who they do not understand. Thus, Dolphus Raymond chooses to seclude himself from Maycomb in order to give the people a reason as

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