Who Is Jem Misjudge The Characters In To Kill A Mockingbird

The protagonists Jem and Scout from the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, initially misjudge the characters Boo Radley, Ms. Dubose, and Dolphus Raymond. As the reader follows Scout and Jem’s journey, the relationships with each character is developed. They learn new information about each character from school, the court case, and from being around the neighborhood. Along the way, Scout learns what Atticus meant when told Scout that you have to walk around in other people’s shoes before you understand them. They realize that first impressions are not always right, and they have to begin to understand a person before you judge a person. In the beginning of the novel, Scout and Jem describe the rumors and secrets about the Radley

The siblings think that Boo Radley crawls around at night scratching on doors and eating live squirrels. They explain, “‘You all’ve gone crazy, he’ll kill us!’ Dill said, ‘It’s my idea. I figure if he’d come out and sit a spell with us he might feel better.’ ‘How do you know he don’t feel good?’ ‘Well how’d you feel if you’d been shut up for a hundred years with nothin’ but cats to eat?’”(47). They were scared of Boo, but tried everything to try and get him to come out and say hello. However, at the very end of the book, Scout finds out that Boo is a very nice man who saved Jem’s life. When Jem was unconscious, Scout said,“‘...why he hadn’t done any of those things… Atticus, he was real nice’”(281). When Scout met Boo, she realizes that he isn’t as bad as people say he was. He was completely different from what people said he was. He was kind and a bit jumpy at times, too. This encounter with Boo is very similar to the

Dubose. Every time they passed her home, she would yell at them, so they believed she was an old crazy lady. Scout explains, “Jem and I hated her. If she was on the porch when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was nothing”(99). Jem destroys her garden because of these remarks, along with the ones about his father. This leads to him becoming involved in reading sections with her. After a while, Scout discovers, “...I wanted to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what… Ms. 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 ever knew”(112). Scout didn’t realize Ms. Dubose’s true standing until she was pronounced dead. She never had the chance to find this out because of the hatred she held against her. She finds out that she died because of her past morphine addiction. This cause was not very studied at the time but morphine addiction can cause, “Breathing difficulties/respiratory arrest. ...cardiac arrest”(https://drugabuse.com/library/the-effects-of-morphine-use/). Ms. Dubose was struggling