TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Secondary
Characters
CHARLES BAKER “DILL” HARRIS
Charles Baker “Dill” Harris is Jem and Scout’s best friend who
visits Maycomb every summer and stays with his aunt Miss Rachel.
His goal throughout the novel is to get Boo Radley to come out
of his house, and for the first few summers the children concoct
many plans to lure him out, until Atticus stops them.
Dill promises to marry Scout and they become “engaged”. One
night Dill runs away from his home in the city, because he feels
like he is being replaced in the family by his step-father. He gets
on a train and goes to Maycomb County, then hides under Scout’s
bed until she finds him.
DILL
Unlike Jem and Scout, Dill lacks the security of
family love. He is unwanted and unloved by his
parents. Dill is described as not having a father; he
doesn’t know where he lives or when he’ll come
back, if he does.
As Dill is only a Maycomb inhabitant during the
summer, he can be used to provide information to
the reader at key moments in the novel when Scout
or Jem fill him in.
DILL
Dill’s family background is very different from that of Scout and Jem. His father seems
to have little contact with him and his family show little concern for his well-being.
At the trial, Harper Lee contrasts Dill’s sensitive nature with logical and rational Jem.
Whereas Jem wants to confront prejudice, Dill decides to accept things the way they are
and make the best of them.
Dill has a curious and quick-thinking nature. He dwells in his “own twilight world” and
gives the impression that his wild imagination is stimulated by unhappiness in his life.
DILL
Dill is a little boy with a big
imagination. He plays with Scout and
Jem and comes up with all kinds of
“eccentric plans”.
He can be very honest. He tells the
Finch family that his Aunt Rachel
“drinks a pint for breakfast every
morning”. When Aunt Alexandra
challenges this, he says he’s just “tellin’
the truth”.
DILL
 He has an active imagination and often prefers to make things up rather than tell the
truth. The reader gets the impression that he uses his imagination to get away from his
unhappy home life.
He runs away from things that make him unhappy. Dill doesn’t feel loved by his
parents. He runs away from home because his family “just wasn’t interested in me”.
He’s so upset at the way Tom Robinson is treated in the courtroom that he has to leave
– he’s running away from reality again.
Dill says that he’s going to be a clown when he’s older because there’s nothing you
can do about people but laugh at them. It’s another example of his escapism – he
doesn’t think things will change so he imagines running away to the circus to escape
Maycomb’s prejudice.
CALPURNIA
Calpurnia is the Finch’s housekeeper, whom the
children love and Atticus deeply respects.
She is an important figure in Scout’s life and provides
discipline, instruction and love. She also fills the
maternal role for them after their mother’s death.
Calpurnia is one of the few black characters in the
novel who is able to read and write, and it is she who
taught Scout to write.
She learned to read from Miss Maudie’s aunt Miss Buford, who
taught her to read out of “Blackstone’s Commentaries”, a book
given to her by Atticus’ father.
Living in Maycomb’s African American and Caucasian
communities, Calpurnia has two different perspectives on life, and
Scout notices that she speaks differently with her black friends
than at their home. Whilst everyone is filtered through Scout's
perception, Calpurnia in particular appears for a long time as
Scout’s idea of her than as a real person.
At the beginning of the novel, Scout thinks of her as wicked
stepmother to her being Cinderella. However, towards the end of
the novel, Scout views Calpurnia as someone she can look up to
and realises that Calpurnia has only protected her over the years.
CALPURNIA
CALPURNIA: KEY POINTS
1. Calpurnia represents the bridge between the white and the black
communities
2. Calpurnia gives Atticus and the children information about the
Robinson family
3. Calpurnia takes Scout and Jem to the black community church, thus
providing the children with valuable information that will inform them
during the trial.
4. Atticus uses Calpurnia to thank the black community for their gifts to
him after the trial, but reminds her to tell them they mustn’t do this
again as life is hard.
5. Calpurnia is the person that Atticus chooses to accompany him to tell
Helen Robinson of her husband’s death.
CALPURNIA
Calpurnia teaches and disciplines the Finch children.
Jem and Scout’s mother died when they were young so
Calpurnia helps Atticus raise his children.
She educates Scout – she teaches her to write by
setting her writing tasks on rainy days. She also
teaches the children manners – she is furious with Scout
when she criticises Walter Cunningham’s table
manners.
She isn’t afraid to tell the children off – when she
finds them in the courthouse she tells them they should
be “shamed of” themselves for being at the trial.
Atticus trusts her completely. When Scout complains
that Cal is too strict, Atticus responds “you mind her,
you hear?”
CALPURNIA
She really cares about the Finch family. She can be
affectionate towards Scout. For example, she kisses her and
makes her crackling bread after her first day at school and
calls her “baby” and “honey”.
She’s compassionate – she tells Scout to come and find her
in the kitchen if she ever fells “lonesome”, and Scout turns to
Calpurnia as Jem grows more distant.
Calpurnia can read and write – this is powerful as it gives
the reader hope that characters like her can use their
education to change white people’s attitudes and liberate
the black community.
ARTHUR “BOO” RADLEY
Arthur “Boo” Radley is the most mysterious character in To Kill a
Mockingbird, and slowly reveals himself throughout the novel.
Boo Radley is a very quiet, reclusive character, who only
passively presents himself until the children’s final interaction with
Bob Ewell. Maycomb children believe that he is a horrible person,
due to the rumours spread about him, and a trial he underwent as
a teenager.
It is implied during the novel that Boo is a very lonely man who
attempts to reach out to the children for love and friendship, for
instance by leaving them small gifts and figures in a tree stump.
However, none of the children realise it was he until
the end of the book, when he saves Jem and Scout’s
lives.
It is at this point that Scout finally meets him, the first
time in the book. Scout describes him as being sickly
white, with a thin mouth and grey eyes, almost as if he
was blind.
During the same night, when Boo requests that Scout
walk him back to the Radley House, Scout takes a
moment to picture what it would be like to be Boo
Radley, and while standing on his porch, she realises
that his “exile” inside his house is really not that lonely.
BOO