What Does Miss Maudie Symbolize In To Kill A Mockingbird

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In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are a few “blossoms”, as well as beautiful flowers that are introduced. Flowers are important symbols that are compared to the feisty, feminine females that were brought into the novel.
As Miss Maudie had said to Jem, “Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more yard. I’ll have more room for my azaleas now!” (pg. 97), Miss Maudie Atkinson thinks about her azaleas and more space for them to possibly “breathe”. She doesn’t seem to care for her own pleasures and comforts as most people do, but thinks about her azaleas more. Miss Maudie seems to care for her flowers almost as gracefully and gently as she probably would be with small children. Scout had observed Miss Maudie …show more content…

In the book during the trial, Mayella refers to herself as nineteen-and-a-half. This means that mentally, Mayella may think of herself as younger than she really is, possibly under the age of ten, but physically she’s mature. The correlation between Mayella and her geraniums is a connection not made by coincidence. Mrs. Dubose was also brought to the novel for a short amount of time, but she had a lot of details to talk about, too. In the novel, it said: “Mrs. Dubose would hound Jem for a while on her favorite subjects, her camellias...” (pg. 144). The quote says that Mrs. Dubose had favorite things and that one of those ideals were her camellias, or her Snow-on-the-Mountains. After Jem had ruined Mrs. Dubose’s camellias, her punishment was given to Jem. One day she said to him: “ Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says the top’s growing back out. Next time you’ll know how to do it right, won’t you? You’ll put it up by the roots, won’t you?” (pg. ?). Camellias are symbols of longevity, or long life, and divinity. A little while after Jem destroyed her flowers, Mrs. Dubose’s helper, Jessie, had said that they were growing back, basically saying that those flowers were strong and that they’d live long. In the novel, Harper Lee uses this flower to represent Mrs. Dubose’s sickly state, but she let the flowers live, while Mrs. Dubose passes and fades away in her condition. The comparison between them though, is the fact that they both had lived long lives and are both very