She openly insults Atticus, who is always very polite to everyone including Mrs Dubose, in the presence of his children. ‘“Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the courthouse lawing for niggers…Your father’s no better that the niggers and trash he works for!”’ This greatly angered Jem, who later on in the day ‘cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs Dubose owned’.
For his punishment, Jem was made to go and read to Mrs Dubose. During this time, she would correct him on the mistakes he made, and I think this shows that deep down inside she was trying to educate him, and give him a better understanding of literature. However, about twenty minutes into their first reading session, Mrs Dubose had a fit. This is explained later on in the book, where we learn that she is in fact a morphine addict.
After her death, Atticus called her ‘“the bravest person [he] ever knew’”. He said that ‘“when you’re as sick as she was, it’s alright to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn’t alright for her.’” She wanted to end her life without being dependant on anything; she wanted to be in complete control of herself. This shows what a determined character she is, and it gives us the impression that her bitterness towards the children was all because of her addiction.
During the hours of her death, Mrs Dubose told her ‘Negro girl’ Jessie to ‘“…fix [Jem] this box-”…Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a white, waxy, perfect camellia. It was a Snow-on-the-Mountain.’ This was the very flower that Jem had destroyed earlier on in the book. Mrs Dubose gave this to Jem as a way of saying that good can come out of anything.
For me, this also represents Mrs Dubose herself. She was destroyed by the morphine, just like her flowers had been destroyed by Jem. In time though, the flowers grew back and, in time, Mrs Dubose was able to fight off her morphine addiction. The meaning I receive from this is that no matter how much something is damaged, shattered or ruined, eventually, with a little hard work, it can be repaired and re-established.
I see Mrs Dubose as very diverse to the other characters in the book. One example of this is how much of a contrast she is to Miss Maudie Atkinson. Miss Maudie is almost like a mother figure to Scout and Jem because of the way she acts towards them. ‘[Miss Maudie] had never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in out private lives. She was our friend.’ This shows us that Miss Maudie has the children’s trust, and they think of her as someone they can rely on. Mrs Dubose however is a woman who they plainly hate, and who intimidates them at every opportunity.
Mrs Dubose can be described as one of the minor mockingbirds in the novel. We are told, by Miss Maudie, that ‘“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.”’ Although Mrs Dubose does not make Jem and Scout’s lives easier, she is still suffering from an addiction that must be hell for her to go through. We see many examples of Mrs Dubose being bitter, but she is also good-natured about Jem and Scout’s mother and Atticus’ late wife, saying ‘A lovelier lady than our mother never lived.’ Through this we can see that deep down inside Mrs Dubose is not sour towards everybody.
I have stated my points about Mrs Dubose being an interesting character in the above. I believe that her character does not come through very solidly until the end of the first part of the book; at her strongest she is at death’s door.
