To Kill A Mockingbird Appearance Vs Reality Analysis

In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, many characters are employed to become symbols for themes. For example, Dolphus Raymond, the town drunkard an interracial relationship, is used to represent the theme of “appearance versus reality”. Generally, the people of Maycomb viewed Raymond as a drunkard heathen who had committed an act against god by marrying and starting a family with a black woman, In accordance with the racist views of the time, Raymond had committed a horrible atrocity, and the people of the town could not fathom how a reasonable, sober white man would dare to associate with a woman of color in such a fashion.- In the novel, Dolphus is portrayed as a dishonorable alcoholic, rarely seen without a brown paper bag containing what appears to be whiskey. Even the children thought of Raymond as a drunkard, with Jem asking how the man could “stand to get drunk [before] eight in the morning”when they had encountered him on their way to Tom Robinson’s trial. His apparent alcoholism was believed to be the cause of his highly frowned-upon relations with a woman of color. During the time, interracial relationships were seen as an
After an exchanging of words, Raymond reveals the truth to the children - it’s not whiskey in the brown paper bag, but rather, Coca Cola. Raymond fabricated his alcoholism to protect his family in a world where they’d surely be slaughtered. The townsfolk were outraged by the fact that a respectable white man would dare to begin a family with a black woman, so to protect his family, he invented the persona of the town drunkard to fool the town into thinking that his actions were a result of him being “in the clutches of whiskey.” Not only did this give the townsfolk a “reason to latch onto”, it gave Raymond the freedom to live his life the way he wanted, and it protected him and his family from