Miss Maudie is an avid gardener and grows many different types of flowers, but she is best known for her azalea bushes, which she tends to especially carefully. Throughout the book, whenever Scout thinks about Miss Maudie and what she cares about, the phrase "Miss Maudie and her azaleas" comes up as often, if not more, than the phrase "Miss Maudie and her garden". Why is this character so strongly associated with azaleas? It may have to do with the azalea flower's symbolic meanings. According to the flower symbolism page of livingartsoriginals.com, azaleas traditionally symbolize temperance, passion and fragility. While Miss Maudie isn't a particularly fragile character, she is very passionate about her garden and about Jem and Scout. She shows this trait in her response to her house burning down in chapter 9, when she says that she always wanted a smaller house and a bigger yard anyway, and was more interested in whether Jem and Scout were safe and uninjured than her possessions.
Another character that is strongly associated with a specific flower is Mrs. Dubose and her camellias. Jem destroys her camellias when he snapped on her toward the beginning of chapter 11, and receives a single camellia as a sort of final gift from her after s he died. Accord ing to the same source given for the
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When Jem destroys them in the beginning of the chapter, he is destroying his own perfection by breaking his promise to Atticus not to get mad at anybody for saying something bad about his defense of a black man in court, but when he receives one as a final gift from Mrs. Dubose after she dies, it symbolizes gratitude, because his readings gave her a much needed distraction and helped her quit morphine. The camellias also symbolized Mrs. Dubose's noble reasoning that lead her to make the difficult decision to go through all the pain and suffering it took to quit morphine in the first
From the start of the novel, Miss Maudie's character was portrayed as a woman that was full of integrity and confidence. Even when facing unfortunate events such as a fire burning her house down, Miss Maudie is able to react to the crisis in a calm manner. Confused about Miss Maudie’s response to the emergency, Scout had expected Miss Maudie to be in the process of grieving the loss of her property,
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the main characters Jem and Scout are were walking to town when they walk by Mrs. Dubose's house. Mrs. Dubose says some very hurtful things towards them, which prompts Jem to cut out her flowers. This situation is misleading because it shows that Mrs Dubose was a bad person, but in actuality she was a thoughtful lady.
From the start of the novel, Miss Maudie's character was seen as a woman that was full of integrity and confidence. Even when facing unfortunate events such as a fire burning her house down, Miss Maudie is able to react to the crisis in a calm manner. Confused, Scout had expected Miss Maudie to be in the process of grieving the loss of her property, however, Miss Maudie appeared to be perfectly fine and faced the loss with a
As the predominant idol to Jem and Scout over the course of the novel, Atticus demonstrates that the ambitions people achieve deserve commemoration, even if their activities and stances are contentious. After vandalizing the entirety of Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bush garden, Jem attempts to justify his stunt to Atticus. Citing Mrs. Dubose’s appalling insults directed towards his father, Jem firmly believes that he is vindicated from any form of punishment. Consequently, Atticus makes it mandatory for Jem to read for Mrs. Dubose for over a month. After Jem finished his exercise, Atticus informs his children of Mrs. Dubose’s death roughly one month later. Revealing that Mrs. Dubose had an addiction to morphine, Atticus highlights that she retained
In chapter ten of To Kill A Mockingbird, Jem gets angry at what Mrs. Dubose said about him and his family, so takes scouts brand new baton and chops off the top of her camellia buds and then he snaps her baton in half. As Jem and Scout make their way to town Mrs. Dubose who raked them by her wrathful graze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing She criticized how Scout dressed, how Atticus was defend tom, a black man, and how Atticus let them run wild. When Atticus found out that Jem had chopped the top of her bushes off, he made him go apologize to her. Mrs. Dubose then made a request for Jem which was for him to read
Dubose flower bed because he was mad at her for saying mean things to him. When Atticus found out what Jem had done he was furious. Atticus made him apologize to Mrs. Dubose. Mrs. Dubose asked Jem to read to her for the month. When Jem returned and told Atticus her request he said, “then you’ll do it for a month” (Lee 105). Jem really did not want to because he didn’t want to read to her for a month, it did not sound like a good time. He thought it was unfair. This shows just another of the many different ways life doesn’t always seem fair.
Mrs. Dubose was talking bad about Jem and Scout’s father. Jem got into an external conflict with Mrs. Dubose. Once Jem herd Mrs. Dubose talk about Atticus he raged into conflict taking out his anger on Mrs. Dubose's camellia flowers. “Your father’s
Ms.Dubose was an old lady down the block from Jem and Scout, that would shout out malicious things to them about themselves and their family. One example of Jem being childish and acting immature is, that when Ms.Dubose said Atticus was “lawing for a n******” he teared up her precious camellias. This shows how he was immature and couldn't control his actions and made a rash decision when faced with rude comments. Following this destruction, Jem’s punishment is to read every day, including Saturdays, for two hours at Mrs. Dubose’s house. Which he loathes doing because she is a senile old women, who makes rude remarks every time he comes over. At the end of the chapter, Atticus reveals to Jem that she was addicted to morphine and that the reading was part of her effort to wean off of her addiction. Jem receives a gift from Ms.Dubose which is a single camellia. This revels Jem feels surprised, guilty, and saddened when he sees her gift. The camellia was a reminder for the reasons he spent time with Mrs. Dubose, but it was also was a sign for him to remember her by. Atticus teaches Jem a very important lesson that not all heroes use guns and weapons, but have the real courage and strength to fight for what they want to get. “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 see it through no matter what. We finally see when Jem starts to grow up and give things thought when “He picked up the camellia…I saw him fingering the white petals” This shows how Jem has empathy for Ms.Dubose and realizes that she was fighting and had admiration for her. Jem matures and shows how he can be understanding about
According to the newspaper company The Telegraph, daisies can become “serious weeds” and have the ability “thrive in generally inhospitable conditions.” This informative description of a common daisy mirrors F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character, Daisy Buchanan. In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Daisy tries to preserve the stability of her wealthy lifestyle through her marriage with Tom Buchanan instead of pursuing true love with Gatsby. Daisy becomes monotonous and dependent on wealth to act as an equilibrator of her life. Her dependency becomes uncontrollable, and that like that beautiful, innocent flower, she becomes a vile weed rooted in corruption. Fitzgerald implements Daisy as a way to convey the innate destructive property of wealth; it
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, some characters are symbolized by flowers. Harper Lee connects specific flowers to characters because of the meaning of the flowers. She compares Mrs. Dubose to a Camellia, Mrs. Maudie to Azalea, and Calpurnia the Calpurnia flower.
Dubose said earlier about Atticus. Scout tells us that, gHe 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 kneech (103). This quote shows that Jem was feeling very hurt by what Mrs. Dubose had said about his father. To Jem, Atticus seems feeble and old, so, when threatened, Jem feels it is his responsibility to protect him. In the book, when Mrs. Dubose talks about Atticus, Jem just ignores her and walks away, but finally he decides to get revenge. He does this by, glittering the ground with green buds and leaves.h Jem tries to hurt something Mrs. Dubose loves like she attacked Atticus. Mrs. Dubosefs harsh words make Jem feel that it is his job to defend Atticus.
The second symbol is the snow-on-the-mountain camellia flowers. The camellia is just one of the many examples of how symbolism is displayed in To Kill a Mockingbird. The snow-on-the-mountain camellia is a symbol of beauty and escape of happiness in the midst of the ugliness and sadness of a situation. through out chapter 11 mrs.dubose insultes He and Scout. So one day Jem decided to take scouts batons and destroy Mrs.Dubose camellias "until the ground
Dubose. Jem and Scout hated Mrs. Dubose, she was always disrespectful when they passed by her house. She would yell at them about many different things like their behavior, their father, what they would be when they grew up, them walking to town, and them not having their mother around anymore. Most of her comments were about how Atticus was defending a man of color in court. One day Jem went mad, he grabbed Scout’s baton and ran into the front yard and cut the tops off every camellia bush in sight, he didn't begin to calm down until the ground has green buds and leaves everywhere. Once he was finished trashing Mrs. Dubose’ yard he snapped the baton in half, threw it down, when Scout saw she started screaming. Jem pulled her hair, and kicked her down. When Atticus got home he was disappointed that Jem would do something like that, he told him to go to Mrs. Dubose’ house and talk to her. When Jem came back he said he cleaned for her, said sorry, and said that he would help them grow back. Mrs. Dubose told Jem to come to her house everyday after school and on Saturdays and read to her out loud for two hours for a whole month. On the first day they weren't there for a long time because about half way through it was time for Mrs. Dubose’s medicine, Jessie kicked them out because she had to get the
Symbolism is used in the book To Kill A Mockingbird abundantly. There are many symbols in the novel that cultivate the characters, setting, events and objects meaning. The white camellias is one of the many symbols the novel has since it symbolizes forgiveness, bravery and a peace offering.. First, the white camellia can symbolize forgiveness because although Mrs. Dubose had been harsh and rude to Jem, Jem essentially delayed her death. This is done by Jem reading to her every day except Sundays to help her cope with her morphine addiction, by distracting her. Therefore, when Mrs. Dubose gave Jem a white camellia it was a message to Jem saying “forgive me.” As a result, Jem being the mature child he understood this message as he is seen “fingering
The Mockingbird is a symbol of innocence in To Kill a Mockingbird: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (Lee 90). Ms. Maudie is trying to explain to the kids that it is a sin to kill something innocent. The Mockingbird does nothing harmful to them they just sing songs to the humans . There are many connecting symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird. Not only do many things in the book such as mockingbirds there are things in the book that represent these symbols. A mockingbird is innocent, keeps to itself, makes others happy much like Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Scout Finch throughout the novel.