What Does Mrs Dubose Symbolize In To Kill A Mockingbird

In part one of the story To Kill A Mockingbird, the tertiary character Mrs. Dubose has significance in the story because her behavior makes Jem realize that after all of Mrs. Dubose’s horrible behavior, there are other intentions behind some of Mrs. Dubose’s actions, for example, why Mrs. Dubose uses so much help from other people, and what message Mrs. Dubose is trying to send with the actions she takes. Every day for a month, Scout and Jem read to Mrs. Dubose. As punishment for Jem tearing apart her Camellia bush, Scout thinks to herself, “It suddenly came to me that each day we had been staying a little longer at Mrs. Dubose’s, that the alarm clock went off a few minutes later every day. . . Today she [Mrs. Dubose] antagonized Jem for nearly two hours with no intention of having a fit,”

‘I think that was her way of telling you-everything’s all right now, Jem, everything’s all right,” (Lee 128). Mrs. Dubose presented herself as a bad person to Jem and Scout because of her racism and said harsh things to the kids, which is why Jem thought of the flower as a symbol of torture because he was raised by a “nigger-lover” which is bad in Mrs. Dubose’s eyes. Atticus sees that the flower is Mrs. Dubose’s way of saying that everything is okay between Jem and Mrs. Dubose now because Jem helped her overcome her addiction to morphine. Atticus might think this because even though he had an understanding that Mrs. Dubose was racist and cruel, she didn’t act this way in front of Atticus, and instead acts a different way in front of Atticus. This allows him to see the deeper meaning, for example, she is not brave, and instead she is a coward. Mrs. Dubose is an important tertiary character because of her influence on Jem which causes him to be oblivious to the real reasons, behind the racism, that Mrs. Dubose shows him; Jem later understands the reasons why Mrs. Dubose relies on other people's help so often, and what her actions are meant to