To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper
Lee has managed to create a complex and interesting man in the very minor character of
Dolphus Raymond. Raymond is a wealthy white man who prefers living and sharing in the
company of Negroes--a trait that is sure to make him an outcast in 1930s Maycomb.
Raymond was apparently set to marry "one of the Spencer ladies," but when his fiance
found out that Raymond had a black mistress,
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"... the bride went upstairs and blew her head
off. Shotgun. She pulled the trigger with her
toes."
According to Jem,
Raymond has several "mixed" children, who
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"he's real good to... They don't belong anywhere.
Colored folks won't have 'em because they're half-white; white folks won't have 'em
'cause they're colored... He's shipped two of his up north. They don't mind 'em up
north."
Consequently, Raymond
is scorned by the white community, and he is believed to be both mentally unstable and a
drunk. However, when Scout and Dill visit him during a break in the Tom Robinson trial,
Raymond reveals a secret to them: The bottle from which he drinks (partially hidden and
disguised in a paper bag) does not contain whiskey; it is merely Coca-Cola. When Scout
asks him why he would "deliberately perpetrate fraud against himself," Raymond tells
them that
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"Some folks don't--like the way I live... if I
weave a little and drink out of this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymond's in the
clutches of whiskey--that's why he won't change his ways. He can't help himself, that's
why he lives the way he does."
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