Jem destroys all of Mrs. Dubose's camellia bushes, which
she adores, because she is an unlikeable person who is constantly criticizing Scout and
Jem and berating Atticus for defending Tom Robinson, who is African-American. To punish
him, Atticus makes Jem read to her every day for a
month.
At the beginning of Chapter 11, Scout narrates the
following about Mrs. Dubose:
"Jem and I hated her. If she was on the porch
when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, 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" (page numbers vary according to the
edition).
Mrs. Dubose seems
like a hateful woman, and she regards Scout and Jem as entirely
unpromising.
When Jem has to read to her, Scout and Jem
regard her with distaste. Her house smells bad, and she has saliva on her mouth. She
also spends a great deal of time berating the children. After Jem spends a month reading
to her, his penance is over.
Atticus tells Scout and Jem a
short while later that Mrs. Dubose has died and that she was addicted to the drug
morphine but kicked her addiction before she died. Atticus explains in Chapter
11:
“She
said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. Jem, when you’re
sick as she was, it’s all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn’t all
right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that’s
what she did” (page numbers vary according to the
edition).
Mrs. Dubose could
have taken morphine until she died, but she decided to go through a great deal of pain
and agony by choosing to quit. Jem's reading to her to help her pass the time and forget
about her pain. Through his experience with Mrs. Dubose, Jem realizes that even people
who seem detestable have secret struggles that others don't know about and that everyone
deserves empathy and understanding, even those who don't at first seem likable or
understandable.
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