TKAM Character Relationship

Dill and Frances both know Scout, but don’t live near her. Both of these boys need to travel a far way to get to Maycomb, but they have different perspectives about the people who live there. Francis, the cousin of Scout thinks she, Atticus, and Dill are losers who don’t act the way they should. From the conversation we read between Frances and Scout, we learn that Francis doesn't like Dill and thinks he is a “runt”. So far, we don’t know how Dill feels about Frances, but they are no doubt not friends. Frances is a very opinionated eight year old, who knows who he doesn’t like and makes sure they know it. He informed Scout that her father was not responsible for his children and lets them “run around like stray dogs”. Dill is a lot more respectful than Francis, even if he may be more unfortunate than him. Dill even asked Scout to marry him, which was kind even if it was a little strange at their age. Francis wouldn’t even say anything nice to Scout, only hurtful words would spill from his mouth. It seems like Dill and Francis are opposites, likely to never become friends.

Dill and Francis have very different relationship with Scout. Scout looks forward to Dill coming every summer and he could very possibly be the only thing that keeps her going all school year. At the end of their school year, Scout said, “Summer was the best season… but most of all, summer was Dill.” Summer is when Dill came and Dill was a reason they awaited the summers so greatly. During the summer Dill, Scout, and Jem played together and never purposely tried to hurt each other, even if they did sometimes. But, at Christmastime, Francis came with his grandmother, Scout’s Aunt Alexandria. To Scout, Francis was a completely different situation. Scout and Jem loved the Christmas season, except for one thing. “A flip of the coin revealed the uncompromising lineaments of Aunt Alexandra and Francis.” Francis is the part of the holiday season the Scout doesn’t like, which shows that they don’t have a good relationship, unlike her and Dill.

Both Dill and Francis have an effect on Scout, both positive and negative. Overall, Francis has a negative effect on Scout. Scout never looks forward to seeing Francis and Francis brings out the worst in Scout. After one conversation with Francis, Scout started fighting and swearing, when she had promised the people who she cares about that she wouldn’t do it anymore. It seems like if it weren’t for Francis, she would not be so aggressive towards others. Dill also has a bit of a negative effect on Scout, even if it isn’t as much of a negative as Francis’. Scout is mostly happy when Dill is around, but she also becomes sad or frustrated when he doesn’t pay attention to her. If Dill wasn’t there, Scout obviously wouldn’t care if Dill wasn’t hanging out with her, and she would have Jem to herself. Dill also may be a slightly bad influence on Scout since he is a bit of troublemaker, and gets Scout to do the bad things also. Dill has an overall more positive effect on Scout compare to Francis. Dill makes Scout happy and keeps her from fighting with people. These two characters show the differences of people people can have in their life.

Another pair of characters that are related to one another but are complete opposites are Aunt Alexandra and Atticus. Yes, they grew up in the same house, but they are very different from one another. Scout even says, “she had been swapped at birth, that my grandparents had perhaps received a Crawford instead of a Finch.” Their differences are even noticeable to an eight year old, which means they must be pretty different. Aunt Alexandra, Francis’ grandmother, thinks Scout and Jem are dirty, not well taken care of children who lack respect for adults. She must feel very strongly about it if her eight year old grandson knows about it and is talking about it to his cousin, Scout. “like Grandma says, so it ain’t your fault. I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger lover besides, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family.” Atticus is a gentle man who wouldn’t purposely hurt anyone, unlike his sister.

Atticus is a very supportive character in “To Kill A Mockingbird” Scout. He tries to help her in any way he can, whether with fighting, swearing, or anything any questions she has. His motto is to answer kids truthfully when they ask a question to him. On the other hand, though, his sister, Aunt Alexandra puts Scout down and is not supportive. She calls her mean names and makes it known that she doesn’t like her ways. Their relationships with Scout are quite different from each other because not only because it’s her father and aunt. As discussed before, Atticus is supportive to Scout, so their relationship is much stronger that Scout and “Auntie”. Aunt Alexandra, in addition to Francis is a person that Scout does not look forward to seeing every year. I presume that Scout would lose her mind if she had to put up with Alexandra’s criticism all year long, she would not be as happy. She would probably not think of it, but she is lucky she has such a good, kind father who thinks about his relationship with his children and constantly tries to strengthen it.