Chapter 1 1. The narrator of this novel is Jean Louise Finch, daughter of Atticus Finch, who is also addressed as Scout. Scout is a young 6 year old girl who lives in Maycomb, Alabama. Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird” narrates this story in first person. 2. Simon Finch, the father of Atticus was a very wealthy man who lived a long life and passed away a rich man. He made a living by selling cotton and passed this trade down to the next generation of Finch’s. The Finch family is affected by the great depression which caused a great impact on their family land. Atticus, son of Simon, decided to study law and his younger brother, John Hale, studied medicine in Boston. Their younger sister, Alexandra, was the only sibling to stay on …show more content…
When coming home from town Mrs. Dubose’s hateful words got to Jem and he went on a rampage. He destroys her camellia and splits Scouts baton in half, pushing her to the ground. Scout was unsure why Jem had the sudden urge to this. 3. Jems’ punishment is that he had to clean up all of the flowers and tend to them every Saturday until they grew back. Jem also has to read to Mrs. Dubose for one month. Jem doesn’t like the fact that this would be wasting his time and he is also afraid of her. 4. Scout and Jem start to notice a pattern when they go to Mrs. Dubose’s house. She would talk to Jem about her favorite subjects, and about their father. Mrs. Dubose would open and close her mouth but wouldn’t reply to Jem. Jessie would make the kids leave when the alarm clock would go off. 5. When Scout tells Atticus what Mrs. Dubose has been calling him he responds by saying that “nigger-lover” is a word used when someone is favoring a Negro (pg.144). The lesson he teaches Scout is that calling a person a name doesn’t make you a better person, it just shows how low of a character you are. 6. When Atticus comes back from Mrs. Dubose’s house he tells the kids that she had passed away and it was because she was a morphine
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the main characters Jem and Scout are were walking to town when they walk by Mrs. Dubose's house. Mrs. Dubose says some very hurtful things towards them, which prompts Jem to cut out her flowers. This situation is misleading because it shows that Mrs Dubose was a bad person, but in actuality she was a thoughtful lady.
As the predominant idol to Jem and Scout over the course of the novel, Atticus demonstrates that the ambitions people achieve deserve commemoration, even if their activities and stances are contentious. After vandalizing the entirety of Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bush garden, Jem attempts to justify his stunt to Atticus. Citing Mrs. Dubose’s appalling insults directed towards his father, Jem firmly believes that he is vindicated from any form of punishment. Consequently, Atticus makes it mandatory for Jem to read for Mrs. Dubose for over a month. After Jem finished his exercise, Atticus informs his children of Mrs. Dubose’s death roughly one month later. Revealing that Mrs. Dubose had an addiction to morphine, Atticus highlights that she retained
From her front porch, Jem just sees her as a bitter old lady however, once he gets close up to her he realizes what bad condition she is in and how frail she is. The fact that Jem does not know about Mrs. Dubose’s illness also shows her courage because she is fighting her horrible illness without the support of her community. After Mrs. Dubose dies, Atticus reveals that Mrs. Dubose wanted to die free and that she is the bravest person he has ever known. During a conversation between Atticus and Jem, Atticus says “I wanted you to see what real courage is... It’s when you know you’re licked but you begin anyway...
Jem learns from visiting Mrs. Dubose that not everything is how it seems at first glance. He also learns the value of courage and how it will later affect him as he matures into an adult. From what is described, the readers can draw a conclusion that Mrs. Dubose is impolite and bitter towards the children and is not afraid to speak her thoughts about Atticus defending Tom Robinson. As a result, Jem carries out his anger by destroying her flowers. He is later punished by Atticus by having to read to Mrs. Dubose certain days of the week for a period of time and work on her flowers. Through this process Jem is able to control his impulses and show kindness to those around him even if he does necessarily want to. This shows that Jem is becoming more of a young adult rather than a child. He also realizes that Mrs. Dubose is actually a woman of
Dubose through the author’s use of Conflict, Irony, and Imagery. Jem’s coming of age experience develops when he gets furious with Mrs. Dubose’s attitude towards him and his family, but then realizes why she’s always been a rude, old lady through Atticus’s explanation. It also develops when Jem is asked to read to Mrs. Dubose which is something that was very unexpected. His coming of age experience develops when Jem and Scout are with Mrs. Dubose closer than they ever have been with her. The point, though is Jem and Scout think of Mrs. Dubose as an old, horrible lady and they don’t really like her for what she has done to them and their family. After they discover an explanation from Atticus saying that the things she does is all because of her morphine addiction, they start to understand why does so. If people knew about Mrs. Dubose’s problem and her addiction, then maybe they wouldn’t think of her as the old lady they think of
One characters who is seen one way and performs questionable acts in the end is Mrs. Dubose. Mrs. Dubose is a sickly old woman who lives near the Finches. She is on the verge of dying when she meets Jem who is the main character Scout’s brother. One day Jem destroys flowers out in Mrs. Dubose’s garden. As a punishment, Jem is forced to read to her. Shortly after, she passes
Atticus’s son, Jem, finds trouble with Mrs. Dubose; this caused a change in her character. Jem becomes angry with Mrs. Dubose because of her comments about Atticus to him and Scout; out of anger Jem “cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves” (103). When Atticus became aware of Jem’s actions he sent him down the street to apologize to Mrs. Dubose for what he had done. As a punishment, Mrs. Dubose asked that Jem to come to her home and read to her every day for a month. As asked Jem did bringing Scout along each day. After a month had went by Jem was asked to continue coming to read to her. Jem was not a fan of the idea but he did not want to disappoint Atticus so he did as he told him. Later, after Mrs. Dubose passes away, Jem is informed of why the reading was important to Mrs. Dubose. She had a morphine addiction and reading to her was helping her to break her habit. Jem
To begin with, Jem and Mrs.Dubose have a person vs. person conflict as Jem and his little sister, Scout bound down the street Mrs.Dubose lives on. Mrs.Dubose spits harsh words about Atticus, (Jem’s father), in Jem’s and Scout’s faces. “Your fathers no better than the nig*ers and trash he works for.” (To Kill A Mockingbird, pg.117). When Mrs.Dubose
One of the many things Atticus is passionate about is to teach his children that everyone is equal and not to judge others “until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Much of Maycomb believe that Atticus is wrong by taking the case of Tom Robinson and thinks he is an inadequate parent. Even Jem and Scout’s cousin Francis quotes, “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… t's bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he's turned out a nigger-lover we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb again. He's ruinin' the family, that's what he's doin'”. Scout attempts to understand the town’s disappointment towards her father and whether he truly is a ‘nigger-lover’ and receives the answer; “I certainly am, I try my best to love everybody…if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up in this town. ” Atticus best
Dubose said earlier about Atticus. Scout tells us that, gHe did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves. He bent my baton against his kneech (103). This quote shows that Jem was feeling very hurt by what Mrs. Dubose had said about his father. To Jem, Atticus seems feeble and old, so, when threatened, Jem feels it is his responsibility to protect him. In the book, when Mrs. Dubose talks about Atticus, Jem just ignores her and walks away, but finally he decides to get revenge. He does this by, glittering the ground with green buds and leaves.h Jem tries to hurt something Mrs. Dubose loves like she attacked Atticus. Mrs. Dubosefs harsh words make Jem feel that it is his job to defend Atticus.
The book "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a story of life in an Alabama town in the 30's. The narrator, Jean Louise Finch, or Scout, is writing of a time when she was young, and the book is in part the record of a childhood, believed to be Harper Lee’s, the author of the book..
The woman, Mrs. Dubose, was highly outspoken and was not scared to speak her mind. Her words to Jem were extremely rude and offensive causing him to act out. Jem destroyed the one thing Mrs. Dubose loved and tried so hard to keep nice, her garden. As a consequence, Jem was required to read to Mrs. Dubose everyday after school for a month. During Jem’s service, he was never aware that the lady was a morphine addict who went through withdrawal. Her withdrawal caused her to be quite feisty. She was a courageous woman who suffered from withdrawal as a result of not wanting to let morphine murder her. Jem’s blindness to her issue explains why he was glad for the month to be over and frustrated when Jem received an box from her since he wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.“Jem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a white, waxy, perfect camellia…’Old hell devil, old hell devil!’ he screamed, flinging it down. ‘Why can’t she leave me alone?’” (128). Shortly after this incident, Jem was told of her addiction including that she had passed away from it. He realized that not everyone lives a lavish lifestyle like him, everyone has their own struggles they deal with each and every day. Shortly after, “Jem picked up the candy box and threw it in the fire. He picked up the camellia, and when I went off to bed I saw him fingering the wide pedals” (128). The touching of the flower was when Jem transitioned from boy to man. Mrs. Dubose’s death allowed Jem to see how you should not judge others because you may never know what they are truly going
Dubose. Jem and Scout hated Mrs. Dubose, she was always disrespectful when they passed by her house. She would yell at them about many different things like their behavior, their father, what they would be when they grew up, them walking to town, and them not having their mother around anymore. Most of her comments were about how Atticus was defending a man of color in court. One day Jem went mad, he grabbed Scout’s baton and ran into the front yard and cut the tops off every camellia bush in sight, he didn't begin to calm down until the ground has green buds and leaves everywhere. Once he was finished trashing Mrs. Dubose’ yard he snapped the baton in half, threw it down, when Scout saw she started screaming. Jem pulled her hair, and kicked her down. When Atticus got home he was disappointed that Jem would do something like that, he told him to go to Mrs. Dubose’ house and talk to her. When Jem came back he said he cleaned for her, said sorry, and said that he would help them grow back. Mrs. Dubose told Jem to come to her house everyday after school and on Saturdays and read to her out loud for two hours for a whole month. On the first day they weren't there for a long time because about half way through it was time for Mrs. Dubose’s medicine, Jessie kicked them out because she had to get the
Mrs. Dubose displays acts of personal courage in her honesty and strength. When Jem and Scout walk past her house to go meet Atticus on his way home,
Dubose starts yelling at the children from her porch rocking chair. Mrs. Dubose tells Scout how ugly she is and how bad of a parent Atticus is. Atticus comes to walk the children home and says to her, “ ‘Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening’ “ (Lee 133). Atticus is able to control his thoughts and actions by remaining cool. His quiet dignity and even-keeled manner manifests in his genuine humility. Though Mrs. Dubose never says anything remotely kind to him or the children, he always smiles and responds with utmost politeness.