Elsewhere Zevin Analysis

Dubose does in her struggle with morphine addiction. Similarly to Atticus, the predicament Mrs. Dubose faces is a result of no fault of her own; she was introduced to morphine for medical reasons. When explaining Mrs. Dubose’s response to the situation she found herself in, Atticus says, “When you’re as sick as she was, it’s all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn’t all right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that’s what she did” (Lee 127). This characterization of Mrs. Dubose emphasizes the strength of her conviction; she knows she will die soon and that taking morphine will relieve her pain, along with clearly understanding how difficult it is to break free of a drug addiction, but she chooses to attempt to do so anyways. Her journey ends in success, as demonstrated by Atticus’s reply to Jem wanting to know whether Mrs. Dubose died free: “As the mountain air” (Lee 127). This simile shows that Mrs. Dubose’s dedication towards living by her principles, although it meant sacrificing her physical comfort, paid off at the end. Mrs. Dubose’s decision to take that arduous route shows that even a decision on a personal scale can show tremendous courage and have a tangible

Through her determination to die free of morphine, Mrs. Dubose suffers tremendously from withdrawal showing that mental courage is more difficult to obtain than physical courage. Mrs. Dubose is a morphine addict who appears to be a racist based off of her interactions with Jem and Scout regarding Atticus’ defense of Tom Robinson. In a state of anger, Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose's camellias, and has to read to her for a whole month as a punishment. During this time, the children witnessed the pain that Mrs. Dubose has to endure from not using morphine, yet they could not see her goal and considered her to be disgusting, rather than to show her sympathy for her decision. By the end of her life, Mrs. Dubose has “died beholden to nothing and nobody” (149), she experienced true freedom before she passed away. Mrs. Dubose did

Dubose to teach a lesson of courage and strength in a form that is not immediately clear to the reader. While most of the town sees Mrs. Dubose as a crotchety old woman it later becomes clear to the reader that she was never a truly bad lady. After her death Atticus explains to his children, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand… She was the bravest person I ever knew” (128). Mrs. Dubose’s addiction affects only her temporary behavior. While she does not approve of Atticus, most of the insults said to his children are not sincere. If she truly believes her words, she will not allow them into her life. Atticus does not want his children referring to his shooting of the mad dog as a courageous act. The “real courage” he is speaking of is facing a situation with knowledge that negative consequences will occur. Mrs. Dubose knows that ending her addiction will cause pain in her life, but she continues to do what she believes is right. As a result, her fortitude is passed on to Jem and Scout. She was born as a good person, and she died as a good person. Additionally, Mrs. Dubose is an example of determination and tenacity. Atticus explains to Jem, “She meant to break herself of it before she died, and that’s what she did” (127). When she realizes she is addicted to morphine, it is Mrs. Dubose’s intention to free herself of it before her death. She recognizes a flaw in her life that needs to be fixed. Jem and Scout provide distraction to help achieve this. With their assistance, she is able to survive longer periods of time between each administration of her addictive painkiller. Most people would choose to surrender and die relatively free of suffering, but Mrs. Dubose continues to fight until she reaches her end goal. She pays little attention to her physical pain, but more to following her moral values and overcoming something she believes

Dubose wants Jem to come read to her even though Mrs. Dubose clearly despises him. However through Mrs. Dubose Lee provides the reader with evidence as to why it is incorrect to form impressions of people hastily without thought and consideration. Lee does so by revealing that Mrs. Dubose was not necessarily as vicious as the reader first thinks. In fact she asks that Jem read to her, and he does so every day for an entire month. However Jem continues to strongly dislike her because she still continues to criticize him and his family; however, he persists. Despite his personal hatred for Mrs. Dubose, Jem battles his emotions and continues going to read to her. Jem learns from Atticus that Mrs. Dubose passed away and she had left him a camellia flower inside the candy box she gave him; his initial reaction is one of utter confusion and he is unable to understand the reason behind her actions because he had always believed that Mrs. Dubose disliked him. He is surprised when she leaves him something. Atticus explains to Jem that Mrs.Dubose was a morphine addict and her erratic behavior was a result of withdrawals. Jem never knew this, and this information overwhelms him both physically and emotionally. What Jem thought he had seen on the outside as bitter hate and anger was in reality just a thin layer of pain, which was hiding the true strength and courage, which she had within her. Mrs. Dubose had

Atticus Finch had noticed her stay strong through her life when he explained to his son “Mrs Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her.” he saw what this morphine addict went through and said “She was the bravest person I ever knew” because how she made the pain go away but having jem come over and the most important thing he had said was “She died beholden to nothing and nobody.” (112). She used jem to make the pain go away as she was addicted. She had nobody as she was a widow and now it was just those painkillers keeping her from death as every day she felt the pain but was courageous enough to fight through it.

" This quote is in reference to Mrs. Dubose. She is struggling with a Morphine addiction, and to help her overcome it before she passed away Atticus requested Jem to read to her. The kids did not know about this; they were only aware of Mrs. Dubose going senile and having crazy fits. Her attempt to try and stop her addiction until she died is a testament to her courage. She knew that she may not win the battle against herself or her addiction, but she tried

Dubose died a free woman when he says, “Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I knew” (Lee 112). He is saying how Mrs. Dubose died believing that she was no in debt to nothing and nobody. When he describes Mrs. Dubose as the bravest person he knew, he was extolling her for voicing her opinions of certain matters that not everyone believed in. Atticus also thought she was brave for pushing through her hardship and not giving up until her end. He is using Mrs. Dubose as an example for Jem and Scout so they can learn what to say and how to say it so it does not sound too disrespectful, but they could still express their opinions on certain

Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose was an elderly, ill-tempered, racist woman who lived near the Finches. She was a morphine addict as Atticus told Jem, "She took it as a pain-killer for years." Due to a chronic disease, she only had a couple months left. Despite being an addict for years, she decided to die remedied from her addiction. This shows courage because she could have died a painless death with the drug but, she decided to die "beholden to nothing". As Atticus tells Jem, "Jem, when you’re sick as she was, it’s all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn’t all right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that’s what she did.”

Dubose, an elderly woman, is very influential to Scout’s maturity by teaching her about real courage. Mrs. Dubose has an addiction to morphine and wants to die without having any of it in her system. She has Jem and Scout read to her as a distraction from her suffering. Atticus wants Scout to go with Jem to read, so that she would be able to understand what real courage and perseverance is. “I wanted you to see something about her—I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.

Dubose, one of our neighbors, certainly was a very peculiar woman. She was very old, and seemed very mean and stingy to Jem and I. She also insulted Atticus on numerous occasions for his standing in the trial, and that made Jem so furious that he “cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubosed owned”(103). Of course, when Atticus found out about this, there were consequences. Jem was to “come every afternoon after school and Saturdays and read to her aloud for two hours”(105). I chose to go with Jem, just so that he wouldn’t be alone, but that was not the only reason as I soon would find out. I realized that “each day we had been staying a little longer at Mrs. Dubose’s, and that she was well into one of her fits by the time it sounded”(109). At the time, I didn’t understand why this was the case, and neither did Jem. However, Atticus later explained to us that Mrs. Dubose “was a morphine addict”(111). That drug was supposedly for pain, but before Mrs. Dubose died, “she said she meant to break herself of it”(111). Her effort of getting clean of the drug was not a useless one and she “die[d] free”(111). To this day, I still believe that Mrs. Dubose was a great woman, and that she truly knew what it meant to be

Through Mrs.Dubose, Atticus was able to convey his message to Jem and even says that she is the "bravest person" he has ever meet (Lee 149). Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict but was able to break her addiction. Drug addicts struggle when they break their addiction and sometimes a relapse can happen. Mrs. Dubose was suffering internally but thanks to Jem she was able to overcome. She knew that her addition was painful but she stuck with it.

Mrs. Dubose was courageous in the sense that she had the determination to fight her addiction. She was near death, but she wanted to die having overcome her addiction to morphine. Nonetheless, she could not fight her addiction alone. When Jem ripped the heads off of her flowers, she could have just scolded him and accepted her apology. Instead, she wanted Jem to read to her every afternoon. In the beginning of this arrangement, Jem thought that Mrs. Dubose was just trying to be callous. Little did he know that he

Atticus views her struggles with her morphine addiction as admirable enough, but Atticus and Lee made a point of showing that Mrs. Dubose wanted to die as free “as the mountain air” (148), unlimited by the medications in her blood. As Mrs. Dubose embarks on her dramatic fight to have her body back under her control, Atticus recognises two things about the intense older woman, both regarding the bravery it took to attempt what she did. Firstly, he becomes aware that Mrs. Dubose is sick and was already doomed to meet her death in the near future. In spite of this, she decides that she had had enough of her addiction and wants to become just herself again, not just an ill woman who relies on a substance to numb the pain she is feeling. Secondly, Atticus realizes that Mrs. Dubose is not only fighting the withdrawal of the drug itself, but also against her own body’s pain that the morphine was meant to numb. She takes the medication to escape the hurt of living, yet wants nothing more than to bring herself back to a world where she is in control of her own fate and fortune. Lee’s writing Mrs. Dubose into the story presents courage as facing the demons you know will eventually cause your downfall, all while holding your head high. To Atticus, Mrs. Dubose’s actions and choices define her as a brave and honourable person, even if she never agrees with his views. After her death, Atticus continues to have respect for her and the personal

Dubose, is shown as a cynical, rotten old lady. Mrs. Dubose has been addicted to morphine and is trying to stay clean. In chapter of eleven of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mrs. Dubose is shown taking her anger out on the narrator's brother, Jem, by saying, “Yes indeed, what has this world come to when a Finch goes against his own raising.” (11) This offensive remark shows that there seems to be a tension towards some underlying reason other than whatever Jem did.

Mrs. Dubose was trying to break her morphine addiction. She was going through a rough time trying to ease off of the addiction. She talked bad about Atticus