Spear, Ella Mr. Shipp English 1 05/17/2024 Characterization in Kill a Mockingbird. One of the main themes in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is that people aren’t always how they seem at first. This is shown in several characters throughout the novel. Mrs. Dubose, Mr. Underwood, and Mr. Raymond are all characters that prove to be someone different than how they are presented at first. At the beginning of chapter 11, Mrs. Dubose was seen as a racist and mean woman, but near the end of the chapter we find out that she was actually struggling with drug addiction. When she was on the morphine, she would have fits that caused her to behave rudely towards others. An example of this is when she is talking with Scout and calls her an “ugly girl”(Lee, …show more content…
This all shows that Mr. Underwood's sense of justice is stronger than his hate for people of color. A third character who ends up being different than originally perceived is Mr. Raymond. Dill asks Jem why Mr. Raymond is drinking out of a sack. Jem says that it’s whiskey and he hides it so as to “not upset the ladies” (Lee 162). Jem then explains that Mr. Raymond drinks because he is depressed. After his late wife found out about his mistress and mixed children, she then took her own life with a shotgun. From then on, he’s always “been sorta drunk” (Lee 163). While Tom Robinson is being cross examined in chapter 19, Dill becomes externally upset by how Tom is being spoken to and goes outside with Scout. While outside, Mr. Raymond talks to the children and offers Dill a drink. Dill takes a sip, and they realize that it is Cola and not alcohol. When asked why he pretends to be constantly drinking alcohol, Mr. Raymond replies that it “helps folks if they can latch onto a reason. folks can say Dolphis Raymond’s in the clutches of whiskey—that's why he won’t change his ways.” (Lee 204). This shows that Mr. Raymond isn't actually an alcoholic, but he just prefers to be around black