what is the reason atticus wanted him to meet mrs.dubose
Advisor: Lucinda MacKethan, Emerita Professor of English, Due north Carolina Country University, National Humanities Center Fellow
©2014 National Humanities Center
Alert: This lesson includes language within the text reflective of the fourth dimension in which the text was written. This language is at present considered offensive.
In To Impale a Mockingbird what does Atticus Finch's relationship with the minor but of import graphic symbol Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose suggest nearly the quality of his moral vision?
Understanding
In To Kill a Mockingbird Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose embodies and gives public voice to the values and attitudes of the Old S. The way the novel's protagonist Atticus Finch responds to her suggests that he lacks the disquisitional perspective needed to acknowledge the depth and pervasiveness of his community's racism.
Text
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, chapter eleven.
Text Type
Fiction
Text Complexity
Grades eleven-CCR complexity band.
For more data on text complexity see these resources from achievethecore.org.
Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.
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Common Core State Standards
- ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.3 (Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events.)
- ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.4 (Make up one's mind the significant of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings.)
Teacher's Note
(Page numbers refer to the 1982 Grand Central Publishing paperback edition.)
The publication of Go Gear up a Watchman in 2015 focused considerable attending on the moral vision of Atticus Finch. Readers who found him to be an exemplar of tolerance and backbone in To Impale a Mockingbird were shocked to hear him voice racist views in Watchman. How could the character who was then enlightened in his original incarnation, set up in the 1930s, become then bigoted in his second coming, set in the 1950s? Readers and critics scrutinized Mockingbird to see if the Atticus who defended Tom Robinson contained the seeds of the Atticus who twenty years later joined the Klan-like Citizens' Council. They might profitably accept focused on chapter xi, for at that place we learn that Atticus suffers from a moral blind spot, which prevents him from fully acknowledging his community'south racism. Analyzing that chapter, this lesson offers students the opportunity to develop a critical perspective on Atticus's judgment and character.
At the outset it is disquisitional to emphasize how securely embedded Atticus is in Maycomb. "He liked Maycomb," the narrator tells u.s.a. early in the novel, "he was Maycomb County built-in and bred; he knew his people; they knew him…. Atticus was related past claret or matrimony to nearly every family unit in the town." (p. 6) For Atticus the community of Maycomb is essentially a spider web of personal relationships. On ane hand, this is commendable because information technology enables him to know the town'south residents as individuals and to make allowances for their shortcomings and foibles. On the other mitt, yet, it is a problem because information technology denies him the critical distance needed to identify those shortcomings and foibles in any larger moral context.
We outset become aware of Atticus's blind spot when he explains the Robinson case to his brother. It is essentially a lost crusade thanks to "Maycomb's usual disease." "Why reasonable people go stark raving mad," he laments, "when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand." (p. 117) This is a curious access for the "Maycomb County born and bred" lawyer who knows his people. Information technology suggests a peculiar innocence in a thoughtful, well-read man who ought to know better. "Maycomb's usual disease" has many causes, but surely, Atticus must exist aware of its historical roots, if for no other reason than that a song embodiment of that history holds along just yards from his own home.
Affiliate 11 is a critical section of the novel. It concludes the largely idyllic portrayal of Maycomb we run into in part 1 and deepens the foreshadowing of the tragedy we see in role 2. Chiefly, nevertheless, it presents Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, a minor but important character in the story. The lesson's text analysis explores her meaning every bit a symbol and her function in the town.
Conspicuously, Mrs. Dubose represents the traditional order of the Confederate Due south. One style Harper Lee establishes this association is to give Mrs. Dubose a sense of taste for the novels of Sir Walter Scott, whose romantic visions of aristocracy and gentility shaped the Old Due south'due south epitome of itself. Students are unlikely to recognize that association, still, and illustrating it would almost require another lesson, so it goes unexplored here. Near certainly, though, students will connect her to the Amalgamated South through the CSA pistol she is rumored to hide beneath her shawl, and the lesson does explore that. Perhaps more important, the lesson examines the symbolic import of the camellias Mrs. Dubose proudly cultivates. At 1 indicate Lee juxtaposes them with Mrs. Dubose views on race (p. 144). They serve equally something of a stand-in for Mrs. Dubose herself when Jem, in response to her insults, decapitates the Snow-on-the Mountains that edge her porch. They take on deeper symbolic resonance when we realize that the camellia is not just the land bloom of Alabama but is also associated with the Knights of the White Camellia, a Ku Klux Klan-like organization, founded in 1867, to enforce white supremacy in the South. These associations imbue Jem'southward destruction of Mrs. Dubose's blossoms, his admission that next fourth dimension he would pull the bushes up by their roots, and his ambiguous "fingering" of the flower at the end of the chapter with considerable symbolic import.
To propose further Mrs. Dubose's clan with the Confederate South, yous might ask students to speculate on her age. If you do, you will probably get responses ranging from sixty to eighty. For the sake of illustration, you might desire to settle on 70 and ask students to calculate the approximate year of her birth. The novel seems to be fix around 1935 or 36. (The narrator mentions the demise of the National Recovery Administration (p. 336), which was shut downwards in 1935 when the Supreme Court declared the National Recovery Act unconstitutional.) Based on those dates, Mrs. Dubose would accept been built-in around 1865 or 66, at the end of or shortly later the Civil War. Thus you might enquire how events she witnessed as she came of age in the South — the defeat of the Confederacy, the impoverishment of the region, Reconstruction, and the imposition of Jim Crow — might have shaped her attitudes and values, peculiarly on matters of race.
The lesson explores not simply what Mrs. Dubose represents only also how she functions in the town. She "stations" (p. 134), an important word whose connotations the lesson examines, herself on her porch at a primal arroyo to downtown Maycomb, whence she passes judgment not only on the Finch children but presumably on everyone who passes by. Her judgments reflect the values and attitudes of her heritage. She embodies the old Southern order and, as she is presented in the novel, is the main enforcer of its mores. Delicate and passing she may exist, only she is notwithstanding a public and vocal communicator of the racist ideology that shaped her and the culture of her region. How Spotter, Jem, and Atticus respond to her suggests much most their willingness and ability to acknowledge the depth and pervasiveness of Maycomb's racism.
Upwardly to affiliate eleven but children, Cecil Jacobs and cousin Francis, have called Atticus a "nigger lover," undoubtedly echoing the opinion of their parents. Mrs. Dubose, from her porch, is the offset adult to level that insult (p. 136), and she goes beyond it with linguistic communication far more acidic than that which Cecil and Francis employ. "Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for," she hollers at Scout and Jem equally they pass her house (p. 135) Upbraiding Jem for mumbling during one of his penitential reading sessions, she taunts him: "Don't estimate yous feel like belongings [your head] upwardly… with your father what he is" (p. 146).
It is important to emphasize how vitriolic and wounding her language is. "So you lot brought that dirty little sis of yours," she sneers upon seeing Picket with Jem on one visit (p. 141). Moreover, information technology is essential to have students understand just what Mrs. Dubose does to Scout and Jem in their hours with her. "Mrs. Dubose would hound Jem," the narrator tells us, "on her favorite subjects, her camellias and our father'south nigger-loving propensities" (p. 144). Here, day after day, an adult, respected, indeed admired by their male parent and mayhap by the entire boondocks, seeks to communicate the white supremacist heritage of the Old South to Jem and Scout, in upshot to a new generation of Southerners. Yet Atticus cannot bring himself to signal out how morally reprehensible that legacy is. He dismisses it as a set of views "a lot different" from his own and qualifies fifty-fifty that mild demur with "maybe" (p. 149). When he seeks to explicate Mrs. Dubose's insults to Jem, his compassion amounts to evasion. "Jem," he says, "she is old and ill. You tin't agree her responsible for what she says and does" (p. 140). Most certainly, he has long been aware of Mrs. Dubose'due south views on race. To attribute them now to her age and health is, similar his bafflement over the roots of "Maycomb's usual disease," an example of his unwillingness to acknowledge fully his community's racism.
In affiliate 11 Scout, Jem, and Atticus approximate the old woman. "Jem and I hated her," says Scout (p. 132). "She was vicious" (p. 133). "She was horrible" (p. 142). It is important to remind students that these judgments are not those of the half-dozen-year-old Scout or the nine-year-old Jem but rather those of the developed Lookout, the narrator, who is looking back on her past and offer a considered assessment of it. And her assessment of Mrs. Dubose sharply contradicts that of Atticus who believed Mrs. Dubose to be "a peachy lady," "the bravest person" he always knew (p. 149). Upon hearing Atticus draw her that manner, Jem throws the candy box that contained her posthumous peace offer into the fire. What does this action suggest about his attitude toward Mrs. Dubose and his begetter'south paean to her courage?
Why does Atticus hold Mrs. Dubose in such esteem? The answer lies, peradventure, in the type of courage he attributes to her. According to Atticus, "real courage" is beginning a struggle "when yous know you're licked before you begin" but commencement anyway and seeing it "it through no matter what" (p. 149). It is, in brusque, persisting in a lost cause. This is precisely the same sort of courage Atticus displays in his defence force of Tom Robinson. "The jury," he tells his brother, "couldn't maybe be expected to take Tom Robinson's discussion confronting the Ewells'" (p. 117). Atticus may identify with Mrs. Dubose, seeing in her struggle with morphine addiction a reflection of his struggle with the Robinson case.
Who is correct virtually Mrs. Dubose, Atticus or his children? Was she a "great lady" or an "sometime hell-devil"? The lesson asks students to determine. The determination of chapter xi, richly ambiguous, offers trivial guidance. What does Jem'southward "fingering" of the gift camellia represent? Is he but trying to calm downwards subsequently his confrontation with his father? Is he reconsidering his opinion of Mrs. Dubose in the low-cal of Atticus's defense of her? Is he questioning the moral judgment of his father who seems to evince an easy, complacent credence of the racist views that stung him into a rage? And what about Atticus? When he settles back to read the local paper, is he simply resuming his academic means, or is he evading the truth about Mrs. Dubose and the customs of Maycomb by distracting himself with the comforting minutiae of life in his little town?
This lesson is divided into ii parts, both attainable below. The teacher's guide includes a groundwork notation, a text analysis with responses to shut reading questions, and an optional follow-up assignment. The pupil version, an interactive PDF, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions and the follow-up assignment.
Teacher's Guide (continues below)
| Student Version (click to open)
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Teacher's Guide
Background
To Kill a Mockingbird is ane of the nigh popular novels ever to be published in the United States. Since it appeared in 1960, millions of copies have been sold, and in 1962 it was made into an award-winning movie. Readers have embraced its protagonist, lawyer Atticus Finch, as a hero, a dauntless human who follows his conscience in the pursuit of justice fifty-fifty though almost of his neighbors oppose him, and he knows his cause is lost.
Fifty-fifty though the racism of the Atticus who appears in Go Prepare a Watchman, the outset draft of To Kill a Mockingbird published in 2015, has disappointed many, in that location is much to admire in him as he was portrayed in 1960. Even so, every bit conscientious readers we must seek to understand him fully. This lesson follows suggestions in chapter 11 that raise questions about the scope and depth of his moral vision.
Affiliate 11, which concludes function one of the novel, ends the largely idyllic portrayal of Maycomb and deepens the foreshadowing of the tragedy we encounter in part two. Importantly, however, it introduces Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, a modest but important grapheme. This lesson examines what she represents; how she functions in the novel, and how Picket, Jem, and Atticus respond to her. The children's view of her is very unlike from that of Atticus, and that sharp difference raises questions about Atticus'southward ability and willingness to acknowledge the racism of his community. Lookout, Jem, and Atticus judge Mrs. Dubose, and this lesson asks you lot to approximate their judgments.
Text Analysis
Mrs. Dubose and the Town
Lookout man and Mrs. Dubose, from "To Impale A Mockingbird," 1962.
1. At the outset of chapter 11 the narrator tell united states that it was "impossible to get to town without passing" the home of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. What position does Mrs. Dubose's home occupy in Maycomb?
If information technology is impossible for the Finch children to get to boondocks without passing Mrs. Dubose's home, it must be impossible for many others, as well. Thus her home is located at a cardinal entry point to the heart of Maycomb. 1 might say that she controls the approach to the boondocks from one direction.
ii. "It was rumored," the narrator says, that Mrs. Dubose keeps a "CSA pistol" under her shawls. What does CSA stand for?
Confederate States of America, the official name of the government that attempted to secede from the Usa in 1861.
3. What does the fact that Mrs. Dubose concealment of a pistol is "rumored" suggest?
Obviously, information technology suggests that no one knows for certain if she is concealing a gun, but it also suggests that she is enough of a public presence in the town to exist the subject of the sort of speculation and word that spawn rumor.
four. When Scout and Jem pass her firm, Mrs. Dubose is not simply sitting on her porch; she is "stationed" there. What connotations does the give-and-take "stationed" carry?
It has military connotations, suggesting the placement of soldiers in strategic locations.
v. Considering that Mrs. Dubose'southward house controls a key approach to Maycomb's business commune, that she may be armed, and that she "stations" herself on her porch, how does Harper Lee present her in the opening pages of chapter 11?
She presents her as a lookout man or guard who is on lookout man to protect the town in some way.
6. What does Mrs. Dubose do from her outpost on the porch?
She questions people who pass by, rather in the way a guard might. She also passes judgment on their behavior.
7. What does it advise about Mrs. Dubose's opinions that she sometimes delivers them in a voice then loud the entire neighborhood can hear them?
Information technology suggests that her judgments have a public dimension, that she is speaking to the town. Considering what nosotros acquire about Maycomb's general attitude toward Atticus's defense of Tom Robinson — Picket tells him most folks think he is wrong — she is evidently speaking for the town as well.
8. When Jem and Scout pass her house, Mrs. Dubose insults their father. What is her main complaint against Atticus?
That he has gone "against his raising," in other words, that he has betrayed his class, his family unit, and the traditions of the town in which he grew up, traditions that Mrs. Dubose represents and upholds in the public judgments she renders from her porch.
9. How do nosotros know that Mrs. Dubose is trying to be deliberately hurtful with these remarks?
When she sees Jem'southward response to her insult — "Jem stiffened" — she knew that her "shot had gone habitation," and she continues her taunting.
10. Why is information technology significant that the narrator tells us that Mrs. Dubose's insults "aimed at Atticus" were the first she had heard "from an adult"?
Up to this indicate in the novel, only children, Cecil Jacobs and cousin Francis, have insulted Atticus. Their attacks carry less weight than those of adults, fifty-fifty though they may echo the opinions of adults. With Mrs. Dubose, however, an one-time and peradventure revered figure has passed judgment on Atticus'south behavior. Given the role that she plays in Maycomb — that of town sentinel and public enforcer of its traditions — it is clear that she speaks for much of the customs of Maycomb. Her words carry substantial weight.
Mrs. Dubose and Her Camellias
"Snowfall-on-the-Mountains" camellias
Note: To understand fully the symbolism of the camellias, information technology helps to know that the camellia is the state flower of Alabama and that it is associated with the Knights of the White Camellia, a Ku Klux Klan-similar organization, founded in 1867, to enforce white supremacy in the post-Ceremonious War South.
11. When Jem and Scout visit Mrs. Dubose to read to her, she "would hound Jem" on her "favorite subjects." What are they?
Her camellias and Atticus's "nigger-loving propensities."
12. As nosotros take seen, Harper Lee links Mrs. Dubose's camellias with her views on race and her insulting behavior toward Atticus and the children. How do these associations explain why Jem attacks the flowers?
When Jem cuts the heads off the camellias, he is responding to the insults Mrs. Dubose she has delivered against his father and the Finch family. He cannot attack her, so he does the next all-time thing: he goes after her prized flowers. The camellias are a stand up-in for the old lady herself.
13. After Jem attacks the flowers, Mrs. Dubose taunts him by maxim that the blossoms have re-grown. Because the associations that cluster around Mrs. Dubose's camellias, what does their re-growth symbolize?
It symbolizes the resilience of the attitudes and values held by Mrs. Dubose.
14. In symbolic terms, what does Jem's admission that he would pull the camellia bushes up by their roots suggest?
Together the camellias and Mrs. Dubose symbolize the old Confederate South whose attitudes toward race nonetheless deeply inform the customs of Maycomb. Jem'south admission that he would pull them upwardly by the roots suggests that he stands in profound opposition to those attitudes. He is likely to exist far less accepting of the tradition represented past Mrs. Dubose than his father is.
Judging Mrs. Dubose
fifteen. What causes does Atticus cite to account for what Mrs. Dubose says and does?
He attributes her views and her behavior to her age and ill-health.
16. What other causes might he have cited?
If, in preparing for the lesson, you lot had your students explore the events Mrs. Dubose experience growing upwards in the mail-Civil State of war Southward, you might refer to that discussion here. She came of age when the ideology of white supremacy dominated Southern culture, and undoubtedly that culture had a powerful shaping outcome on her. Harper Lee presents her as a living embodiment of information technology. She is frail and passing only nonetheless a potent public spokeswoman for the racism she grew up with.
17. Is Atticus letting Mrs. Dubose off too easily? Explain your answer.
Some students will concur with Atticus that the sometime woman — ill, addled by morphine, and dying — should not be held responsible for her views or her beliefs. Just judging from what nosotros run across of her, neither her views non her behavior is a recent development, resulting from the deterioration of her health. Manifestly, she has launched her opinions from her front porch for some time, and Atticus himself acknowledges her long-standing racist views. Atticus'south exoneration of Mrs. Dubose could be interpreted as an evasion, a deliberate refusal to acknowledge her complicity in sustaining the boondocks's racism.
eighteen. When, at the end of the chapter, Jem opens Mrs. Dubose's gift, he calls her an "old hell-devil"? Why?
Jem has felt the direct sting of her racist insults.
19. Atticus is quick to interpret Mrs. Dubose's souvenir as a peace offer and to assure Jem that "everything is all right." Is "everything all right"?
For Atticus it is. He sees the community of Maycomb every bit a web of personal relationships, and when Mrs. Dubose mends hers with Jem, everything is, indeed, all correct. But for Jem everything does not appear to exist all right.
twenty. By presenting Jem with the gift of a camellia, what, in symbolic terms, is Mrs. Dubose asking Jem to do?
Symbolically, she is asking Jem to accept the heritage she and her camellias stand for.
21. Atticus defines "real backbone" as persevering in a lost cause, seeing a struggle though even though you know yous are going to lose. Why would this definition of courage be peculiarly appealing to him, and why would it cause him to admire Mrs. Dubose?
This is the sort of courage he is displaying in his defense of Tom Robinson. He knows he will non convince the jury to have Robinson's word over that of the Ewells, but he is forging alee anyhow. Believing that Mrs. Dubose displays the same courage, he may see his struggle in the Robinson instance reflected in her struggle against drug addiction.
Picket and Atticus Finch, from "To Kill A Mockingbird," 1962.
22. What does Jem do after his father praises Mrs. Dubose?
He throws the box that independent her gift into the fire.
23. What does this action suggest about his response to Mrs. Dubose, her souvenir, and his begetter'south view of the old lady?
It suggests that, at least to some caste, he rejects all three. Information technology is important to note, however, that he does keep the flower.
24. What does Jem's "fingering" of the camellia suggest?
The meaning of this act is ambiguous. Jem may but be trying to calm down subsequently his confrontation with his father, or he may exist reconsidering his opinion of Mrs. Dubose. Then, also, he might be critically questioning what seems to be his father'southward easy, complacent acceptance of Mrs. Dubose'south virulent racism.
25. How do you interpret Atticus's return to his reading of the local newspaper?
The pregnant of this act is ambiguous, likewise. Atticus may merely exist resuming his bookish ways, merely students may sense some smugness or self-approbation on Atticus's office as he settles in to read while his son broods. Clearly, he has non convinced Jem that Mrs. Dubose was a "slap-up lady." The boy is in some manner processing his confrontation with his father. Atticus seems unaware of the seriousness of what just happened. His retreat to his paper may corporeality to an evasion of the truth almost Mrs. Dubose and about Maycomb itself.
26. In affiliate xi Jem, Scout, and Atticus estimate Mrs. Dubose. "Jem and I hated her," says Scout. "She was vicious." "She was horrible." Yet Atticus considers her a "not bad lady," the "bravest person" he e'er knew. Do yous agree with the children or Atticus? Explain your answer.
(Notation to teacher: Y'all may want to brand the response to this question a follow-up written consignment.)
Follow-Up Assignment
Choose one of the post-obit themes explored in chapter 11 of To Kill a Mockingbird: racism, the generation gap, the role of history in the present, or another theme equally designated by your teacher. In what ways tin y'all see this same theme present either in other literature or in our world today? Use specific examples to develop a comparing between chapter eleven and literature or the world today. Organize and construct a short (ii minutes) oral presentation on your findings and share with your classmates. As you speak, be sure to begin with a clear thesis and requite specific examples to bear witness your points.
Text:
- Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, HarperCollins: 1960 (Yard Central Publishing edition: 1982), chapter eleven.
Images:
- Scout (Mary Badham) and Mrs. Dubose (Ruth White) in "To Kill A Mockingbird," 1962. Universal International Pictures, Silver Screen Collection.
- Scout (Mary Badham) and Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in "To Kill A Mockingbird," 1962. Universal International Pictures, Argent Screen Collection.
Source: https://americainclass.org/the-moral-vision-of-atticus-finch/
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