Saturday, July 30, 2016

According to Dolphus Raymond, how will growing up change Scout and Dill?

In Chapter 20, Scout and Dill talk with Dolphus Raymond outside of the courthouse. Dill had been crying at the way Mr. Gilmer was questioning Tom Robinson. Dill felt that it wasn't right how Mr. Gilmer was talking down to Tom Robinson, and Dill says, "it just makes me sick." (Lee 266) Dolphus lets Dill drink some of his Coca-Cola and says to Scout,



"Things haven't caught up with that one's instinct yet. Let him get a little older and he won't get sick and cry. Maybe things'll strike him as being---not quite right, say, but he won't cry, not when he gets a few years on him." (Lee 269)



He is telling Scout that when they grow older, they will become desensitised to the prejudice displayed toward African Americans over time. In Maycomb, Alabama white people treat black people with contempt on an everyday basis. Raymond tells Scout that witnessing the "hell white people give colored folks" will become so commonplace, they won't even stop to think about it. Dill is a sensitive child who cries at the unfair treatment of black people. As Dill grows older, he will witness more racial injustice, and be unnerved when it happens. When Scout mentions that Atticus told her, "cheatin' a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin' a white man," Dolphus says the she hasn't seen enough of the world yet. (Lee 269)

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