Dolphus Raymond Character Analysis

The movie To Kill a Mockingbird cuts out Dolphus Raymond from the story which causes the viewers to miss the story of Dolphus Raymond and the understanding of both why he has to fake his choice to be with a black woman (as a wife) and his integration with the black community. Before the trial starts, Scout sees Dolphus sitting with the black people drinking out of his brown bag (which was commonplace for people to hide public consumption of alcohol). Jem tells Dill “[Dolphus’s] got a Coca-Cola bottle full of whisky in there. That's so not to upset the ladies….He’s got a colored woman and all sorts of mixed chillun” (Lee, 177). Then Jem retells Dolphus’s backstory: Dolphus was supposed to marry a white society lady, but after the wedding rehearsal,

It is common for people who commit suicide to plan out their method of death, so this case suggests the bride made a sudden decision to kill herself and grabbed the closest weapon to end her life suddenly. It is likely that the bride was so mortified that her soon-to-be-husband was having (or had) relations with a black woman that she impulsively shot herself. When Dill gets upset and leaves the courtroom at the trial’s unfair ending, Scout and him reencounter Dolphus who kindly. offers Dill a drink from his bag. When Dill takes a sip, he tells Scout, “it’s nothing but Coca-Cola” (Lee, 221). When Scout questions Dolphus’s gesture, he explains, “Some folks don’t like the way I live…. I try to give them a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason” (Lee, 221). Dolphus has to fake his “drunken lifestyle” because the community would not understand why a white man would choose to partner with a black and integrate into the black community. White people rationalize Dolphus’s wayward behavior of being a drunken crazy man who then, broken-hearted and crazy, shacks up with a black woman – these extreme stories excuse Dolphus’s “crazy” decisions, and then the white community can let him live his “fallen”