Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose’s flowers because he is angry that she called his father names and he was punished by having to read to her.
When Jem attacked Mrs. Dubose’s flowers, he was reacting to her racism and the town’s. Most people did not approve of his father defending a black man. Jem had been able to keep his head for the most part, but he just lost it with Mrs. Dubose.
Scout gets upset when Mrs. Dubose begins to yell at them. She insults them for being on the street when they should be in school, even though it’s Saturday. She also scolds Scout for wearing overalls. Finally, she turns on their father. Most of the town disapproves of his defending Tom Robinson because he is a black man accused of raping a white woman. Some of them take it out on his children.
“Yes indeed, what has this world come to when a Finch goes against his raising?
I’ll tell you!” She put her hand to her mouth. When she drew it away, it trailed a long silver thread of saliva. “Your father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for!” (Ch. 11)
Jem told Scout to keep her head, but this was too much for him. He took her baton and attacked Mrs. Dubose’s flowers. They are the one pretty thing about her, and their presence seems to contradict her words. Basically, he just wants something to lash out at, and the flowers are there and defenseless.
He did not begin to 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. He bent my baton against his knee, snapped it in two and threw it down. (Ch. 11)
Scout panics because her brother usually keeps his head. She worries about what Atticus will say or do. His solution is to send Jem and Scout over to read to Mrs. Dubose every day for a period of time. She sets an alarm and he reads to her until it goes off.
It is not until later that Jem learns why he was sent there.
I wanted you to see something about her—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. (Ch. 11)
Atticus wanted them to understand that there is more to people than there may first seem to be. The punishment may seem harsh, but it was intended to help Jem get a more nuanced understanding of Mrs. Dubose and why she was acting the way she was. She was addicted to morphine, and that made her more vicious.
Atticus wanted Jem and Scout to understand that sometimes people have to fight for what they believe in, because that...
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is what he is doing with Tom Robinson. It is not always easy, but it is necessary and worth it in the end. It is a lesson in the complexity of human nature that young Jem needs to learn.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, why did Jem destroy Mrs. Dubose's flowers? Do you think his punishment was fair?
I definitely believe that his punishment was fair. He had viewed her as a mean and nasty old woman. The act of having to read to her, to go and interact with her, humanized her and taught Jem a lesson in compassion toward his fellow human beings that transcends the boundaries of age differences. When he sees what she suffers through, what her limitations are, he begins to understand her as a person, not a mean old lady. This is a direct parallel to our understanding of Boo. Boo is different, he is mentally challenged, but he is not a monster. So many of the monsters in our world vision are made as such because they are different from us so we view them through a lens of fear. A healthy dose of understanding and sympathy can go a long way toward making us better humans.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, why did Jem destroy Mrs. Dubose's flowers? Do you think his punishment was fair?
On the way to town that morning, Jem and Scout had passed Mrs. Dubose's place, and she was sitting on the front porch. As they passed, she starting hurling insults at them, criticizing them and Atticus. She was pretty rude and caustic; one of the remarks centered around Atticus being a "nigger lover," for taking the case of Tom Robinson. Jem was furious. Normally, he took her comments in stride and brushed them off (she always insulted them when they walked by), but that was too much for Jem. On the way home, when she was inside, he destroyed her flowers in revenge.
Atticus made him go to her house and read to her every afternoon until she died. It was an interesting punishment, to be sure. It might seem a bit drastic, but Atticus was trying to help Jem to see what a strong, "brave lady" she was as she fought against her addiction. Atticus was all about seeing beyond people's exteriors, and looking at them for who they were on the inside, and that is the lesson that he wanted to teach Jem.
I hope that helped; good luck!
What does Jem do to Mrs. Dubose's flowers in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee? What is his punishment?
In chapter eleven of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jem and Scout have an encounter with an old woman who will change Jem's perspective on life. Atticus has agreed to defend Tom Robinson, and opinions in town about that decision are mixed. It is actually a compliment to Atticus that people are upset, because it means they know his character and therefore know he intends to truly defend a Negro rather than just go through the motions as so often happens in these types of cases.
Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose is a cantankerous old woman who sits on her porch and makes a sport out of insulting Jem and Scout every time they walk by her house. She says terrible things about them and their father, Atticus, insulting their heredity and personal hygiene, as well as their father's choice to defend Robinson. For example, she says:
“Yes indeed, what has this world come to when a Finch goes against his raising? I’ll tell you!” She put her hand to her mouth. When she drew it away, it trailed a long silver thread of saliva. “Your father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for!”
Horrible as this is, it is a day when she says nothing--is not even on the porch-- when Jem erupts. He has been learning how to be a gentleman and practicing that skill quite diligently, but being insulted by an adult is just too much for him to take, and Scout thinks the only "explanation for what he did was that for a few minutes he simply went mad."
He and Scout had just been downtown, and Scout has a baton she is twirling on the way home. When they pass Mrs. Dubose's house, Jem grabs the batons and thrashes the woman's camellias "until the ground [is] littered with green buds and leaves." Scout is screaming and he screams back at her and finally kicks her in his anger. He snaps the baton in half and storms home. It is an outrageous display of anger, something which Atticus later says he expected from Scout rather than Jem.
Of course Mrs. Dubose knows who committed this act, and she is quick to let Atticus know what happened. Jem's punishment is to go read to Mrs. Dubose for two hours after school every day and on Saturday.
Though Jem does not want to do it, he does, and Scout goes with him. It is an unpleasant experience, but it gets a bit better over time. What they discover later is that Mrs. Dubose was addicted to morphine (for pain) and was courageous enough to want to die without being addicted to anything. Atticus wants his children to see that true courage is not just wielding a gun or performing some great feat of valor. Mrs. Dubose demonstrates courage by defeating her body's cry for the drug to which she is addicted.