Dill
biographical background
Harper Lee's older brother and young neighbour (Truman Capote) were playmates, just like Dill in the novel.
Capote age 4
Truman Capote was born in New Orleans, as the son of a salesman and a 16-year-old beauty queen, Lillie Mae Faulk. His father, Archulus "Arch" Persons, worked as a clerk for a steamboat company. Persons never stuck at any job for long, and was always leaving home in search for new opportunities. The unhappy marriage gradually disintegrated. When Capote was four, his parents eventually divorced.
The young Truman was brought up in Monroeville, Alabama. He lived some years with his relatives, one of whom became the model for the loving, elderly spinster of the author's novels, stories, and plays. "Her face is remarkable - not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind," described Capote in A CHRISTMAS MEMORY (1966) his distant relative Sook, Nanny Rumbley Faulk. Sook was sixty-something, "small and sprightly, like a bantam hen..." Capote's mother, Lillie Mae, wrote letters and telephoned to her son, often crying that she had no money and no husband.
We can see clear traces of Truman Capote's own troubled background in the family problems that keep driving Dill to Maycomb as a refuge and make his relationship with the Finches special. Miss Rachel Haverford may not be as colourful as Capote's Sook, but she is clearly based on the same spinster aunt who cared for Truman as a child. The contrast between Dill's family and the Finches may have existed in real life between Capote's and the family of Harper Lee, but the main point of it in the novel is to emphasise the nurturing quality of the family that surrounds Scout and Jem which still cannot withstand the evils of prejudice and racism within the community.
The young Truman was brought up in Monroeville, Alabama. He lived some years with his relatives, one of whom became the model for the loving, elderly spinster of the author's novels, stories, and plays. "Her face is remarkable - not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind," described Capote in A CHRISTMAS MEMORY (1966) his distant relative Sook, Nanny Rumbley Faulk. Sook was sixty-something, "small and sprightly, like a bantam hen..." Capote's mother, Lillie Mae, wrote letters and telephoned to her son, often crying that she had no money and no husband.
We can see clear traces of Truman Capote's own troubled background in the family problems that keep driving Dill to Maycomb as a refuge and make his relationship with the Finches special. Miss Rachel Haverford may not be as colourful as Capote's Sook, but she is clearly based on the same spinster aunt who cared for Truman as a child. The contrast between Dill's family and the Finches may have existed in real life between Capote's and the family of Harper Lee, but the main point of it in the novel is to emphasise the nurturing quality of the family that surrounds Scout and Jem which still cannot withstand the evils of prejudice and racism within the community.