Dill cries because he is not only confused, he was angry. On page 265, it says, " It was just him I couldn't stand" "Who, Tom" "That old Mr. Gilmer doin him thataway, talking so hateful to him" (Lee 265). This shows that Dill is angry because he was upset that Mr. Gilmer was talking to Tom so hatefully as if he was not a person, but a slave. Calling Tom boy and talking to him as if he needed to show to him and everyone else, that he and Tom were not equal. Also when Mr. Gilmer started talking to Tom as if he consistently had lost his temper shows that he doesn't care for Tom's side of the story. Dill gets frustrated when he realizes this, therefore he cries.
This relates back to Atticus's comment about having a police force of children, because if children can figure out that race shouldn't affect your life and what happens to you in life, then you would think that adults would have figured it out. Also if children can see when people are being judged based on race, then the future of people who are discriminated against will finally have justice. Do you think that most children have different views from there parents about how the south should be? Do you think that even though some children see the world differently than adults, will the future actually be better for minority races?
In this section Harper Lee is particularly prescient about the impending "generation gap" that went from being a fairly standard and small phenomenon to being the defining issue of the times shortly after she published the book, that is, the sixties. The generation gap is the difference in views between one generation and its offspring, with the younger generations generally being more liberal and open to new ideas than the old generation. Harper Lee is trying to demonstrate the generation gap through the mouth of dill when he says "Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that..." "That's just Mr. Gilmer's way..." (Lee, 226). This brief exchange between Scout and Dill demonstrates the difference in perception of the methods of Mr. Gilmer and Dill in distributing what each believes to be justice, even though Dill has no actual power to distribute and enforce his judgement. Harper Lee succeeded in painting a picture of a real difference of perception between the two generations by contrasting Mr. Gilmer's method of prosecution and Dill's disgust with that method.
ReplyDeleteI think that because some children see the world differently than adults do then the future will be better for minority races because it only takes on person. Throughout U.S. history, there have been some people that have stood up or silently fought against racism. For example, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks by sitting in the front of the bus and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, those people weren't counting on anyone else to help them, they are changing the world by themselves. So, therefore if only one child thinks that racism is wrong, then the world can be a better place if that child speaks up. In this book, Scout is against racism and doesn't understand why people are discriminating against negro people but she just stands up for negro people and is starting to make the world a better place even if it only starts in her town.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Ari in saying that this situation is a generation gap. This whole situation could be viewed as being caused by family environmental circumstances. Dill was raised by different people than Mr. Gilmer was. Dill was mostly raised by Aticus, who was his true fatherly figure. Aticus is a person who has a different point of view from the rest of his generation. Mr. Gilmer's children would think that it is okay to discriminate because they where raised that way. Because Aticus' influence has rubbed off on dill he thinks that this whole sentence is wrong and cruel. This is just based on where they were raised and what the people around them where thinking.
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