In chapter 11, Scout recalls her negative interactions with her racist, obnoxious neighbor, Mrs. Dubose. Harper Lee does not specify Mrs. Dubose's exact age, but Scout mentions that she is "very old" and says that she is known to carry a CPA pistol underneath her shawls. The fact that Mrs. Dubose carries a CPA pistol (Confederate Patriots of America) could indicate that her husband or relative fought in the Civil War and was a Confederate soldier. Since the Civil War took place between 1861 and 1865 and the story is set during the 1930s, one could infer Mrs. Dubose's age. If the pistol belonged to her husband and she was around twenty years old while he was fighting for the Confederacy, one could infer that she is in her early nineties.
Scout goes on to mention that Mrs. Dubose lives alone with her black servant. Both Scout and
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Scout goes on to mention that Mrs. Dubose lives alone with her black servant. Both Scout andJem hate walking past her home and become the subject of her verbal tirades. Scout mentions that Mrs. Dubose would get under Jem's skin numerous times by ridiculing their father and referring to them as the "most disrespectful mutts who ever passed her way." When Atticus calms Jem down, he tells his son that Mrs. Dubose is an old lady who is very ill.
Although Harper Lee never specifies the exact age of old Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose in To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout tells us that "neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived." Scout adds that she is "very old." Atticus politely calls her "a sick old lady." In addition to carrying "a CSA (Confederate States of America) pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps," she had
... old age liver spots... Her hands were knobby and the cuticles were grown up above her fingernails... "She has fits or somethin... She spits a lot."
Although her age is never revealed, Atticus tells us that when she died, she died free of morphine addiction, "all ninety-eight pounds of her."
Who is Mrs. Dubose in To Kill a Mockingbird?
Mrs. Dubose is a cranky old lady who lives down the block from Jem and Scout. She sits on her front porch and taunts the children when they pass by. She is generally hateful and argumentative, except when Atticus disarms her by complimenting the flowers in her yard. The children believe Mrs. Dubose keeps a Confederate pistol under the shawl in her lap and isn't afraid to use it. Jem tolerates Mrs. Dubose until the day she verbally attacks his father: "Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for!" This pushes Jem over the edge of control. Shortly thereafter, he uses Scout's baton to destroy the blooms on Mrs. Dubose's prize camllias:
He did not calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves.
As punishment, Jem is forced to read to Mrs. Dubose every day until she dies after a few weeks. Only after her death, does he find out that she was breaking an addiction to morphine so that she could "die free." Jem's reading to her had helped Mrs. Dubose get through the afternoons as she endured her suffering as she slowly withdrew from the drug. From this incident, Jem learns a lesson in real courage, as Atticus explained it:
I wanted you 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. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. 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.
The kind of moral courage Jem learned from Mrs. Dubose helped him understand, later, his father's courage in defending Tom Robinson.
Mrs. Dubose (Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose) is a neighbor of the Finches. She is, Scout thinks, a very mean old lady. She tends to be really mean to the kids -- she yells at them as they walk by her house, things like that.
Once, she says something to Jem about Atticus that makes Jem so mad that he wrecks her garden. What she tells him is that Atticus (she implies) is a disgrace to the family because he spends his time "lawing for niggers." For punishment, Atticus makes Jem go and read to Mrs. Dubose every day.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, what is Mrs. Dubose battling?
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus has always, despite the prejudice that surrounds Maycomb County, encouraged his children to respect everyone's point of view because a person cannot have perspective "until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Atticus teaches his children to learn from the mistakes of others and to never judge people's actions because, as he points out to Jem after Mr Cunningham almost kills him, “he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.”
Mrs Dubose may seem to Scout like "the meanest old woman who ever lived," but her struggle to overcome her addiction to morphine, represents a universal conflict within each person, especially in Maycomb County, who must make a decision to uphold morally sound decisions, regardless of the consequences, or who is willing to ignore the reality and allow an innocent man to be convicted because racial prejudice allows it. She is, significantly, able to overcome her addiction eventually, suggesting that there is hope and that people can change.