The Layers Of Mrs. Dubose In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Ms. Dubose assumes the worst about Scout from the clothes she wears. For Scout, the sexism of every other woman around her could have made her become a girl who just followed other people’s ideas, instead of thinking for herself. Along with being sexist, Ms. Dubose is racist. She even says ‘Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the courthouse lawing for n*****!’ (Lee, 101). Everyone else in the town seems to have the same opinion about Atticus defending an African-American and doesn’t hesitate to use the same offensive words to express their opinion. Ms. Dubose could have offended both women and African-Americans with one simple statement that showed both of her prejudices. She certainly offended one person, Jem, one of the few people in the town who isn’t racist. The way that their opinions clashed was also a factor of how they were raised. Both Jem and Scout were raised by their father, pretty much the only person who was raised in his generation that didn’t have biases against African-Americans. Ms. Dubose was one of the many in this generation who felt like she had a prerogative to think that African-Americans were less than her, and because of her insult, Jem destroyed her flowers, causing even more

Atticus makes Jem think about how he would feel if he was in Mrs. Dubose place, and what he would do. Mrs. Dubose really did no damage and because of her illness, Atticus makes it clear to Jem that she represents bravery, and that she was tougher than anyone he knew. Day after day, as Jem kept reading to Mrs. Dubose, he felt empathy towards her and matured as a person.

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 is an old lady who lives two doors up the street from the Finch's house. Atticus' son, Jem destroyed Mrs. Dubose's flowers because she had said disrespectful things about Atticus which brought out Jem's anger. Even though Atticus was very upset, he does not believe violence is the appropriate way to approach any situation considering it does not teach you valuable lessons. Instead, Jem's punishment was to read to Mrs. Dubose every day for the month and in the end taught him the true meaning of courage. Atticus demonstrates that holding your head up and fists down will save you from more complicated situations. Another example would be when disrespectful Bob Ewell spat on Atticus' face because Atticus made Bob look like a fool during his testimony. Atticus stayed calm during the whole situation. He held his head high and walked away during the scene. Following this further, Atticus sets honorable examples for his children. He believes all people have goodness in their hearts no matter how cruel or heartless they act, even if their status was low, they would have generosity and kindness inside. The first impression of Mrs. Dubose was described as a rude lady. She says to Scout, “Don't you say hey to me, you ugly girl! You say good afternoon, Mrs. Dubose!” (Lee 133). However, Mrs. Dubose is really a kind lady who causes no harm once you get the kindness out of her. In addition, Atticus compliments her and treats her as he would treat any

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

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

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

She was described as being extremely racist, and with a ‘wrathful gaze’ and someone who Scout did not look kindly upon as per her description of the woman being ‘pure hell’. Both the words hell and wrathful conjure up devilish images in my head and I believe that this is an intentional connotation by the author. Thus, from initial appearances it seemed obvious that Mrs Dubose is extremely unpleasant, prejudiced and shameless. However, further into the novel Atticus reveals that Mrs Dubose is in fact an extremely courageous woman who in the face of great difficulty perseveres to battle her morphine addiction. This challenged the harsh aspect of my reaction to the theme of appearances versus reality. This is because it showed me that we should not be so quick to judge and draw conclusions about someone’s nature as appearances do not tell their story. Initially I had typecast her as a weak woman who took pleasure in the derogation of others in order to compensate for her own physical frailty. However, further reading made me realise the possibility of Mrs Dubose growing up to be a great woman who may used her courage to stand up for others if she had been brought up in a different era which did not have such deep set negative ideals about negroes. Moreover, it made me realise that appearances are not necessarily mutually exclusive to the reality of a situation as is this case with this character. While she remains a racist throughout, she also has another facet to her personality which showcases great strength and thus initial appearances were not entirely incorrect but did not show the true reality

In "To Kill A Mockingbird," Atticus, the father of Jem and Jean, has taken the position of giving Jem and Jean valuable lessons, whether what they are in. One of those lessons, was Jem being a gentleman; Jem was taught by him by promptly going to Mrs. Dubose's house and read for a month - after wrecking her garden -, she had met her demise with little to no agony from her morphine addiction, because of Jem; he went to her house and read to her, that consequently had her head assuage of doing morphine. When Atticus announced him that she was deceased minutes ago, he said that "she was a great lady," and he was perplexed about why he called her a great lady after the slander he received. Anything else than the main idea, the main theme was

She just says what she wants to say and does not think about how it will affect others. Chapter 10 reveals that Mrs Dubose is very rude to others. Atticus finds the kids trying to

When Atticus hears of this he calms Jem down and tells him Mrs. Dubose acts like this because she is a morphine addict. He tells Jem “ I wanted you to see something about her-I wanted you to see what real courage is... It’s when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what”(128).

In our lives, we might have friends who have friends that have conflicting opinions than ours and we don’t like that, but luckily we can look beyond that and see the better side in them. It seems like we tend to gravitate to the worse side of people and have difficulty acknowledging their better side. This is precisely what happens to Jem Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. At the beginning of chapter 11, Jem detests Mrs. Dubose and views her as a cantankerous old lady because she treats him and his sister, Scout, horribly as well as insults Jem's father, Atticus. By the end of chapter 11, Jem still thinks of her as a cranky old lady, however, he learns information about Mrs. Dubose's condition and her response to it because of that

The death of Ms. Dubose is the signifying ending event of Part One of To Kill a Mockingbird, yet author Harper Lee did not choose this carelessly. I think Ms. Dubose’s character as a whole was a symbol for the exposition of this story. She’s cantankerous, blunt, and may not be the most reliable of people, much like the entirety of Part One. As her sickness develops, she becomes quieter and weaker, yet doesn’t lose her trademark frank attitude. And, above all, in her last days, she relies on the Finch children. As soon as Ms. Dubose is gone, so is the first part of the story. I also think that the first part ended here because of Jem. Jem’s character development was mostly at the `hands of both The Radley House and Ms. Dubose, and we can observe

However, he is still willing to do so out of his love. Moral education wise, Atticus passes on knowledge of many critical and beneficial ideals to Scout. For example, Atticus makes Scout and Jem read to Ms. Dubose as "punishment" for Jem smashing her flowers. During this period, the children learn a lot about Mrs. Dubose's situation, as well as her underlying character/persona; they realize she is a compassionate, brave, and tenacious woman. (In the end she give Jem the single White Camellia as token of her gratitude.) Afterwards, Atticus tells them "I wanted you to see something about her - I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that it’s a man with a gun in his hand." (Chapter 11, Page 112) Here, and throughout the whole experience he put them through, Atticus is teaching his children about the ideal of courage; it is not simply the use of violence, rather, it is the determination and persistence to succeed even against seemingly insurmountable odds. This is how Atticus shows his love for Scout by educating her in a variety of fields. (And through various methods)