Examples Of Appearance In To Kill A Mockingbird

Beyond Appearances
Scout Finch is a young girl who lives in the town of Maycomb Alabama in the 1930’s, where her father Atticus works to acquit wrongfully accused Tom Robinson in a time of extreme racial prejudice. Harper Lee demonstrates in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird that appearance does not reflect a person's true value and identity through the interactions Scout has with characters like Mr. Raymond and Mrs. Dubose. Scout encounters Mr. Dolphus Raymond outside of the courthouse during Toms Robinson's trial when Scout takes Dill out to get some air. The supposed town drunk offers Dill what they soon find out to be coca cola and says, “‘ You little folks won’t tell on me now, would you? It’d ruin my reputation if you did.’” (Lee 267) Around Maycomb county, Mr. Raymond is known as a man “‘in the clutches of whiskey’” (Lee 268) that is simply too tipsy …show more content…
Mr. Raymond realizes that the racial discrimination that has ravaged their town should be inadmissible but also understands that his point of view is socially taboo. He tries to give the town an explanation for him having a black wife and mixed children by acting like a tired intoxicated man. Scout’s interaction with Mr. Raymond builds upon the idea that a person cannot be properly judged by how they appear right in front of us. Lee uses Scouts conversion with Mr. Raymond to show the reader that the town made him out to be a bad character when in reality he was a person made to oppress his thoughts in order for his family to escape persecution. Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose is another character that Scout misjudges entirely, often stating how she is “‘the meanest lady who ever lived” (Lee 46), but when Atticus told Scout, “‘According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest woman I knew.’” (Lee 149) Scout faced a hard truth. Mrs. Dubose was a woman in a lot of pain; she suffered from a

Show More

Examples Of Appearance In To Kill A Mockingbird