Question: Explain Atticuses definition of courage at the end of Chapter eleven.
At the end of chapter eleven, after miss Dubose has passed away, Atticus describes her as the bravest person he ever knew. He also explains what courage really means, and he says that he "wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand."(149) With this he is telling Scout and Jem that instead of being a guy who stands and fights just because he can, courage is when you know that you will lose long before you even start but that you will still put up a fight because you know that there is a slim chance that you can win, and that you never back down from that fight. He also tells them that in that way, ms. Dubose won because she "died beholden to nothing and nobody."(149)
Harper Lee includes this in the book as foreshadowing to the growing topic of the case where Atticus is the lawyer for a black person. In fact, the "still fight the fight even if you know you will lose" theme has come up once before in the book when Atticus is talking about the case for the first time. On page 101 Atticus replies to Scouts question about why they were still fighting the case even though they knew they were going to lose by telling her that "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win."(101) This shows a progressing theme throughout the book with not giving up and trying to survive even through the hardest times.
Questions:
Why do you think Ms. Dubose did not stay on morphine and try to die a painless death? What do you feel the flower that she sent Jem represents?
I think for Ms. Dubose to not stay on morphine and die a painful death, would be better than suffering the pain of knowing that she died "not free". The theme of courage is used frequently through the book, as Theo had mentioned the theme often comes up when Atticus is talking about the Tom Robinson trial. Atticus mentioned with one specific discussion about Tom Robinson that "The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again." (100). This is similar to Mrs. Dubose who would probably not be able to live with herself if she knew didn't die free of her addiction to morphine.
ReplyDeleteWould it matter to you if you were Mrs. Dubose and had to decide whether to die painlessly or suffer trying to die free from your addiction to morphine? Do you think that Mrs. Dubose was a good person? What is the definition of a "good person" in Maycomb?
When Jem received the flower in the candy box from Mrs. Dubose "He screamed, flinging it down. 'Why can't she leave me alone?'(148)" Jem is mad about receiving the flower because he feels that it is a sour memory she kept of him the led to better ones, such as her reading to him. The flower represented that if you get cut down and torn apart you will always be able to get up and and become the same if not better person that you were before. When Jem got beaten down and torn apart by Mrs. Dubose calling Atticus a "nigger-lover" he got mad but repaying Mrs. Dubose by reading to her caused him to learn to see her differently and become a slightly better person.
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Do you think there was any specific reason that the flower was in a candy box and not a normal box? Why did she send a flower and not a book? Do you agree with what I said about the meaning of the flower?
I agree with your meaning of the flower to an extent. I believe that it represents getting torn apart, and getting cut down, but I think it also represents working to build back up to become better. You wouldn't just immediately become better. I think that in some way/shape/form, this is some way that Harper Lee is trying to represent Jem's childhood with the candy box. And that Jem is outgrowing childhood (throwing the box in the fire), and wants no significant memories of it, except for the special ones (the flower). I think she sent the flower to remind Jem the reason he was there in the first place. Although Mrs. Dubose appeared to hate the children and Atticus, I think that somewhere deep down she liked the three of them.
ReplyDeleteA "good person" in Maycomb is a white person. To be specific a good person in the town setting of Maycomb that Harper Lee has depicted in TKAM is a white person who follows the Maycomb customs. Not following the Maycomb ways would be being different, like Boo Radley, and not being a normal racist unlike Atticus. According to the “Maycomb dictionary” Atticus is not a “good person” because he is not rule biding. Constantly lingering in the air of Maycomb are rumors and racism. People in the town think Atticus treating a black man the same as a white one is "sacrilege". People such as Cecil Jacobs and Mrs. Dubose try to deeply wound Atticus by calling him a "n*gger-lover". I guess they assume that their insults might drive him back to behaving like a “good and normal” Maycomb citizen.
ReplyDeleteQuestions: Who do you think in Maycomb is a "good person"(according to the Maycomb definition)?
Like almost everyone else in the town, Mrs. Dubose was a racist. She was cruel to Jem and Scout, hurling insults at them. She had some good qualities, though. She had courage, and did not want the morphine to control her, even if it was painful She wanted to be stronger than the morphine, and face her death like a soldier. She wasn't nice to Jem, but at the very end she sent him a flower, which was a symbol of peace and forgiveness. As a character in the book, Mrs. Dubose shows what a great person Atticus is, because he is always polite and kind to her no matter how mean she is. He is able to walk in her shoes and understand her even if she can't do the same for him.
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