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Mrs Dubose's Relationship

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel set during the 1930s in a small town in Southern Alabama called Maycomb. The story is told through the narrator, Scout, a young girl who lives with her father, a lawyer, and her older brother Jem. As a child, Scout is portrayed as a stubborn and obnoxious little girl who loves to read, play with her brother Jem, and fantasize about her mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. However, her life gets turned upside down when Scout’s father agrees to do something that is deemed unacceptable in the south; he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a negro who is accused of raping a white girl. Instantly, Atticus and his family go from being respected and beloved by their town, to being outcasted and despised. As a result, …show more content…

Dubose, an unpleasant old lady living in the neighborhood, plays a crucial role in developing Jem’s character. His interactions with her teach him to control his anger and gives him an example of what true courage is. At the start of their relationship, Jem and Mrs. Dubose did not get along. Every evening, when Jem and Scout went out to meet Atticus, he would find them both upset over the insults that Mrs. Dubose had hurled at them while passing by her house on the way to the post office corner. Still, despite their anger, both Jem and Scout remained calm and polite toward Mrs. Dubose. However, after having enough of her insults, “... [Jem] simply [goes] mad (Lee 136).” and destroys Mrs. Dubose’s Camellias, a decision he soon comes to regret when he is forced to go and read to her every day for an entire month as punishment. This situation with Mrs. Dubose taught him not to lash out at people in moments of anger because he will end up regretting what he says or does. The other lesson Jem learns from Mrs. Dubose happens after she dies and he learns that she quit her morphine addiction, so she can, “...leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody (Lee 149).” and this was the lesson Atticus wanted Jem to learn from her; that true courage isn’t a “...man with a gun in his hand.” but someone who knows “ ...they’re licked before they begin, but begin anyway and see it through no matter what (Lee

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is an amazing book with an abundant of surprises. Set back in the 1930’s in Maycomb, Alabama, when the Great Depression was happening and racism from the civil war still rages on in this southern city. All the quotes and themes in the novel can still be associated to life today. As the book was narrating in the past by Jean Louise Finch (Scout), there is one man that guides her and her brother, Jem Finch. It is their father, Atticus Finch.

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Frequently in life, it is said that the harmony and relationship between positive and negative must coexist in every situation. To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel written by Harper Lee, tells the story of a young girl, Scout, and her brother Jem, as they grow up in a segregated American south. Their critical coming of age lesson can be seen in the children’s experiences with Mrs. Dubose, an angry, insulting woman who is later revealed as a courageous figure that battles her morphine addiction by her own means. In chapter eleven of To Kill A Mockingbird, Jem acts out against Mrs. Dubose in defense of his father and family through destroying her prized, beautiful camellia bushes. As punishment, Jem’s father Atticus condemns Jem to read to Mrs. Dubose

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As he is starting to grow, Jem is changing the way he acts, such as him, visiting Mrs.Dubose’s grave and being “grateful for [Scout’s] company when he read to her [Mrs.Dubose]”. Earlier, when he was small, he disliked Mrs.Dubose because she would insult him and Scout. But it went far to an extent where Mrs.Dubose insulted Atticus for defending an African American, causing Jem to kill her favorite flowers. Atticus made him go to Mrs.Dubose’s house to read to her, every day for a month. Eventually, after a month, Atticus received the news that Mrs.Dubose has died.

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Not only did Jem let emotions of anger and/or fear seize control when he decided to cut Mrs. Dubose’s flowers, but also when he was against reading to her. He knew what he did was wrong, damaging her property, and that reading to her would serve as an apology of sorts, but he let his extreme fear of her lure him away from doing so. Once again, Harper Lee stressed the importance of not letting emotion sway us from doing what is

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In Jem and Scout's encounter with Mrs. Dubose, she said, “Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one is in the courthouse lawing for n-words”, (Lee, 135)! This quote demonstrates that not only were young kids harassing Jem and Scout but even people as old as Mrs. Dubose had something to say to them when you think an older person would be more mature. This quote shows that even though Mrs. Dubose lives with an African American woman she thinks that Tom Robinson is guilty just because of his skin color and it shows how people really thought during that time period. At the end of Chapter 11 Atticus said “Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict,”(Lee,147). This quote shows how who once used to be a nice old lady got hooked on painkillers and let them take over her life which resembles innocence being destroyed by evil.

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Mrs. Dubose put Jem to the test when she stepped out of line with remarks about Jem’s father, Atticus. Atticus had told Jem “ You just be a gentleman, son” (102). Atticus told him this in hopes Jem would be mature enough to see the sometimes you have to be the bigger person or in this case a gentleman. After one too many rude comments from Mrs. Dubose, Jem finally snapped and what Atticus had told him, did not matter anymore. “He 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” (103).

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In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, As a punishment for destroying Mrs. Dubose camilla's Atticus sends Jem to read to her as both punishment and to teach him a lesson about compassion and courage. But something the reader would not expect can out of this and has turned someone‘s life around. Mrs.Dubose is the most strong minded and compassionate in the novel because she speaks her mind and tells Jem and Scout what she thinks of their father and this is what she says “Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for!”(Lee 135). This shows that she is not afraid to speak her mind and still Atticus shows her respect even after she insults him. Atticus sees Mrs.Dubose as a human being that is sick and needs that one person to show her some compassion.

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