Dill Flashcards
Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies
Dill is imaginative and, although both Jem and Scout are too, they’re still surrounded by the reality of Maycomb. Whereas, with Dill’s outsider status, he is able to offer a different perspective to the events.
Dill was from Meridian, Mississippi, was spending the summer with his Aunt, Miss Rachel, and would be spending every summer in Maycomb from now on.
Again, this shows that Dill is, effectively an outsider and is therefore able to offer an objective view of the events- paving the way for the readers also objective view of the story that Scout’s telling.
For some reason Dill had started crying and couldn’t seem to stop; quietly at first, but then his sobs were heard by several people in the balcony.
This shows that he’s sensitive to the intolerance of Maycomb- he starts crying uncontrollably when he sees tom being treated so differently from the White witnesses.
Because he’s an outsider and is not used to Maycomb’s racism, he’s not accustomed to this sort of treatment whereas Scout merely says ‘he’s just a Negro’
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 […] about the simple hell people give other people—without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people, too.
Dolphus Raymond is able to explain Dill’s feelings in a way that Dill himself is unable to do- he shows that it is not human nature to have prejudice but it is instead socially ingrained into us by the expectations and boundaries that society has set.
Well I’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.
This quote shows how Dill’s way of coping with this injustice is to laugh at those who believe in it- laugh at their naivety in a way.
This could link to the fact that Dill may be based off Truman Capote, a childhood friend of Lee’s and an insightful and sometimes harsh critic of American culture. Maybe Dill won’t grow up to mock people for their naivety but instead to criticise it.
