Atticus and Scout Do You Know What a
Advisor: Lucinda MacKethan, Emerita Professor of English, N Carolina Land University, National Humanities Center Fellow
©2014 National Humanities Center
Warning: This lesson includes language within the text reflective of the fourth dimension in which the text was written. This language is now considered offensive.
In To Impale a Mockingbird what does Atticus Finch's relationship with the pocket-sized but important character Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose advise about the quality of his moral vision?
Agreement
In To Impale a Mockingbird Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose embodies and gives public voice to the values and attitudes of the Erstwhile South. The way the novel's protagonist Atticus Finch responds to her suggests that he lacks the critical perspective needed to admit the depth and pervasiveness of his community's racism.
Text
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, chapter eleven.
Text Blazon
Fiction
Text Complication
Grades 11-CCR complexity band.
For more than information on text complexity see these resource from achievethecore.org.
Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.
10
Common Core State Standards
- ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.3 (Analyze how the author unfolds an assay or serial of ideas or events.)
- ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.4 (Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings.)
Teacher'south Annotation
(Page numbers refer to the 1982 Grand Key Publishing paperback edition.)
The publication of Go Prepare a Watchman in 2015 focused considerable attending on the moral vision of Atticus Finch. Readers who plant him to be an exemplar of tolerance and courage in To Impale a Mockingbird were shocked to hear him voice racist views in Watchman. How could the character who was so enlightened in his original incarnation, ready in the 1930s, become so bigoted in his second coming, gear up in the 1950s? Readers and critics scrutinized Mockingbird to run across if the Atticus who defended Tom Robinson independent the seeds of the Atticus who twenty years afterwards joined the Klan-like Citizens' Council. They might profitably have focused on affiliate eleven, for at that place nosotros acquire that Atticus suffers from a moral blind spot, which prevents him from fully acknowledging his community's racism. Analyzing that chapter, this lesson offers students the opportunity to develop a critical perspective on Atticus's judgment and character.
At the showtime it is disquisitional to emphasize how deeply embedded Atticus is in Maycomb. "He liked Maycomb," the narrator tells us early in the novel, "he was Maycomb Canton built-in and bred; he knew his people; they knew him…. Atticus was related by blood or union to near every family in the boondocks." (p. 6) For Atticus the community of Maycomb is essentially a web of personal relationships. On ane manus, this is commendable because it enables him to know the boondocks's residents every bit individuals and to make allowances for their shortcomings and foibles. On the other hand, however, information technology is a problem considering information technology denies him the disquisitional distance needed to identify those shortcomings and foibles in any larger moral context.
We first go aware of Atticus's blind spot when he explains the Robinson instance to his brother. It is substantially a lost cause thanks to "Maycomb's usual illness." "Why reasonable people go stark raving mad," he laments, "when anything involving a Negro comes upwards, is something I don't pretend to sympathise." (p. 117) This is a curious admission for the "Maycomb County born and bred" lawyer who knows his people. It suggests a peculiar innocence in a thoughtful, well-read human being who ought to know better. "Maycomb'south usual disease" has many causes, just surely, Atticus must be aware of its historical roots, if for no other reason than that a vocal embodiment of that history holds forth merely yards from his own home.
Affiliate 11 is a critical section of the novel. Information technology concludes the largely idyllic portrayal of Maycomb nosotros see in part 1 and deepens the foreshadowing of the tragedy nosotros meet in role 2. Chiefly, however, it presents Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, a pocket-sized simply important character in the story. The lesson's text analysis explores her significant equally a symbol and her role in the town.
Clearly, Mrs. Dubose represents the traditional order of the Confederate South. One style Harper Lee establishes this association is to requite Mrs. Dubose a gustation for the novels of Sir Walter Scott, whose romantic visions of aristocracy and gentility shaped the Old South's image of itself. Students are unlikely to recognize that association, nevertheless, and illustrating it would almost crave another lesson, and then it goes unexplored here. Most certainly, though, students will connect her to the Confederate South through the CSA pistol she is rumored to hide beneath her shawl, and the lesson does explore that. Perchance more than important, the lesson examines the symbolic import of the camellias Mrs. Dubose proudly cultivates. At one bespeak Lee juxtaposes them with Mrs. Dubose views on race (p. 144). They serve equally something of a stand-in for Mrs. Dubose herself when Jem, in response to her insults, decapitates the Snow-on-the Mountains that border her porch. They take on deeper symbolic resonance when we realize that the camellia is not only the land blossom of Alabama but is also associated with the Knights of the White Camellia, a Ku Klux Klan-like organisation, founded in 1867, to enforce white supremacy in the S. These associations imbue Jem's destruction of Mrs. Dubose's blossoms, his admission that next time he would pull the bushes upwards by their roots, and his ambiguous "fingering" of the flower at the cease of the affiliate with considerable symbolic import.
To suggest further Mrs. Dubose's association with the Confederate S, y'all might ask students to speculate on her historic period. If you lot practise, you will probably get responses ranging from sixty to eighty. For the sake of illustration, you lot might desire to settle on seventy and ask students to calculate the estimate year of her nascency. The novel seems to be set around 1935 or 36. (The narrator mentions the demise of the National Recovery Assistants (p. 336), which was close down in 1935 when the Supreme Court declared the National Recovery Act unconstitutional.) Based on those dates, Mrs. Dubose would have been born effectually 1865 or 66, at the end of or shortly later on the Ceremonious War. Thus you might ask how events she witnessed as she came of age in the South — the defeat of the Confederacy, the impoverishment of the region, Reconstruction, and the imposition of Jim Crow — might have shaped her attitudes and values, especially on matters of race.
The lesson explores not only what Mrs. Dubose represents only also how she functions in the town. She "stations" (p. 134), an important word whose connotations the lesson examines, herself on her porch at a key approach to downtown Maycomb, whence she passes judgment not merely on the Finch children but presumably on everyone who passes by. Her judgments reflect the values and attitudes of her heritage. She embodies the old Southern order and, every bit she is presented in the novel, is the chief enforcer of its mores. Delicate and passing she may be, but she is withal a public and vocal communicator of the racist ideology that shaped her and the civilisation of her region. How Scout, Jem, and Atticus reply to her suggests much nearly their willingness and ability to acknowledge the depth and pervasiveness of Maycomb'due south racism.
Upwardly to affiliate 11 only children, Cecil Jacobs and cousin Francis, have called Atticus a "nigger lover," undoubtedly echoing the stance of their parents. Mrs. Dubose, from her porch, is the first adult to level that insult (p. 136), and she goes beyond information technology with language far more than acidic than that which Cecil and Francis use. "Your father'due south no meliorate than the niggers and trash he works for," she hollers at Scout and Jem as they pass her firm (p. 135) Upbraiding Jem for mumbling during ane of his penitential reading sessions, she taunts him: "Don't judge you feel like holding [your head] up… with your father what he is" (p. 146).
It is important to emphasize how vitriolic and wounding her language is. "And so y'all brought that dirty little sister of yours," she sneers upon seeing Scout with Jem on one visit (p. 141). Moreover, it is essential to have students empathize just what Mrs. Dubose does to Scout and Jem in their hours with her. "Mrs. Dubose would hound Jem," the narrator tells usa, "on her favorite subjects, her camellias and our father'south nigger-loving propensities" (p. 144). Here, day after day, an adult, respected, indeed admired by their father and possibly by the entire town, seeks to communicate the white supremacist heritage of the Old South to Jem and Scout, in effect to a new generation of Southerners. All the same Atticus cannot bring himself to signal out how morally reprehensible that legacy is. He dismisses information technology as a set of views "a lot different" from his own and qualifies even that balmy demur with "maybe" (p. 149). When he seeks to explicate Mrs. Dubose's insults to Jem, his compassion amounts to evasion. "Jem," he says, "she is old and ill. You tin can't agree her responsible for what she says and does" (p. 140). Most certainly, he has long been aware of Mrs. Dubose's views on race. To attribute them at present to her historic period and health is, like his bafflement over the roots of "Maycomb's usual disease," an case of his unwillingness to acknowledge fully his customs's racism.
In affiliate xi Scout, Jem, and Atticus judge the old woman. "Jem and I hated her," says Lookout (p. 132). "She was vicious" (p. 133). "She was horrible" (p. 142). It is of import to remind students that these judgments are non those of the 6-twelvemonth-one-time Scout or the nine-year-former Jem but rather those of the adult Lookout man, the narrator, who is looking back on her past and offering a considered assessment of it. And her assessment of Mrs. Dubose sharply contradicts that of Atticus who believed Mrs. Dubose to exist "a great lady," "the bravest person" he ever knew (p. 149). Upon hearing Atticus depict her that fashion, Jem throws the candy box that independent her posthumous peace offer into the fire. What does this action suggest about his attitude toward Mrs. Dubose and his male parent's paean to her courage?
Why does Atticus hold Mrs. Dubose in such esteem? The reply lies, perchance, in the blazon of courage he attributes to her. According to Atticus, "existent courage" is beginning a struggle "when you know yous're licked earlier you lot begin" but beginning anyway and seeing it "information technology through no affair what" (p. 149). It is, in short, persisting in a lost crusade. This is precisely the aforementioned sort of courage Atticus displays in his defence force of Tom Robinson. "The jury," he tells his brother, "couldn't mayhap exist expected to take Tom Robinson's word confronting the Ewells'" (p. 117). Atticus may identify with Mrs. Dubose, seeing in her struggle with morphine addiction a reflection of his struggle with the Robinson case.
Who is correct virtually Mrs. Dubose, Atticus or his children? Was she a "nifty lady" or an "old hell-devil"? The lesson asks students to decide. The conclusion of affiliate xi, richly ambiguous, offers petty guidance. What does Jem's "fingering" of the souvenir camellia represent? Is he simply trying to calm down after his confrontation with his father? Is he reconsidering his opinion of Mrs. Dubose in the light of Atticus'southward defence of her? Is he questioning the moral judgment of his father who seems to evince an easy, conceited credence of the racist views that stung him into a rage? And what about Atticus? When he settles dorsum to read the local paper, is he merely resuming his bookish ways, or is he evading the truth about Mrs. Dubose and the community of Maycomb by distracting himself with the comforting minutiae of life in his little boondocks?
This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher'due south guide includes a groundwork annotation, a text analysis with responses to close reading questions, and an optional follow-upwardly assignment. The pupil version, an interactive PDF, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions and the follow-up assignment.
Teacher's Guide (continues beneath)
| Student Version (click to open up)
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Teacher'south Guide
Background
To Impale a Mockingbird is one of the most popular novels ever to exist published in the United States. Since information technology appeared in 1960, millions of copies have been sold, and in 1962 information technology was made into an accolade-winning motion-picture show. Readers have embraced its protagonist, lawyer Atticus Finch, as a hero, a brave man who follows his censor in the pursuit of justice even though most of his neighbors oppose him, and he knows his crusade is lost.
Even though the racism of the Atticus who appears in Go Fix a Watchman, the get-go draft of To Impale a Mockingbird published in 2015, has disappointed many, there is much to admire in him every bit he was portrayed in 1960. Nonetheless, as careful readers we must seek to understand him fully. This lesson follows suggestions in affiliate 11 that raise questions most the scope and depth of his moral vision.
Chapter eleven, which concludes function one of the novel, ends the largely idyllic portrayal of Maycomb and deepens the foreshadowing of the tragedy we encounter in office two. Importantly, yet, it introduces Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, a minor but important character. This lesson examines what she represents; how she functions in the novel, and how Sentinel, Jem, and Atticus respond to her. The children'south view of her is very different from that of Atticus, and that sharp divergence raises questions well-nigh Atticus's ability and willingness to admit the racism of his community. Scout, Jem, and Atticus judge Mrs. Dubose, and this lesson asks you lot to gauge their judgments.
Text Assay
Mrs. Dubose and the Town
Scout and Mrs. Dubose, from "To Kill A Mockingbird," 1962.
1. At the first of chapter 11 the narrator tell us that information technology was "impossible to become to boondocks without passing" the home of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. What position does Mrs. Dubose'south home occupy in Maycomb?
If information technology is impossible for the Finch children to get to town without passing Mrs. Dubose'southward habitation, information technology must be impossible for many others, besides. Thus her home is located at a key entry signal to the heart of Maycomb. One might say that she controls the approach to the boondocks from i management.
2. "Information technology was rumored," the narrator says, that Mrs. Dubose keeps a "CSA pistol" nether her shawls. What does CSA stand up for?
Confederate States of America, the official name of the government that attempted to secede from the United States in 1861.
3. What does the fact that Mrs. Dubose concealment of a pistol is "rumored" advise?
Evidently, it suggests that no ane knows for certain if she is concealing a gun, but it also suggests that she is plenty of a public presence in the town to exist the subject field of the sort of speculation and word that spawn rumor.
4. When Scout and Jem laissez passer her house, Mrs. Dubose is non simply sitting on her porch; she is "stationed" in that location. What connotations does the word "stationed" conduct?
It has military connotations, suggesting the placement of soldiers in strategic locations.
5. Because that Mrs. Dubose's house controls a key arroyo to Maycomb's business district, that she may be armed, and that she "stations" herself on her porch, how does Harper Lee present her in the opening pages of chapter 11?
She presents her as a sentry or guard who is on scout to protect the town in some mode.
6. What does Mrs. Dubose practise from her outpost on the porch?
She questions people who pass by, rather in the mode a guard might. She as well passes judgment on their behavior.
7. What does it suggest most Mrs. Dubose's opinions that she sometimes delivers them in a vocalisation so loud the entire neighborhood can hear them?
It suggests that her judgments have a public dimension, that she is speaking to the town. Because what we acquire about Maycomb's full general attitude toward Atticus'south defense of Tom Robinson — Scout tells him most folks think he is wrong — she is apparently speaking for the town as well.
eight. When Jem and Lookout man laissez passer her house, Mrs. Dubose insults their father. What is her principal complaint confronting Atticus?
That he has gone "against his raising," in other words, that he has betrayed his class, his family, and the traditions of the town in which he grew up, traditions that Mrs. Dubose represents and upholds in the public judgments she renders from her porch.
ix. How do we know that Mrs. Dubose is trying to exist deliberately hurtful with these remarks?
When she sees Jem'due south response to her insult — "Jem stiffened" — she knew that her "shot had gone abode," and she continues her taunting.
10. Why is it significant that the narrator tells united states of america that Mrs. Dubose'southward insults "aimed at Atticus" were the first she had heard "from an adult"?
Up to this point in the novel, simply children, Cecil Jacobs and cousin Francis, take insulted Atticus. Their attacks carry less weight than those of adults, even though they may echo the opinions of adults. With Mrs. Dubose, even so, an old and possibly revered figure has passed judgment on Atticus'due south behavior. Given the function that she plays in Maycomb — that of town sentinel and public enforcer of its traditions — it is clear that she speaks for much of the community of Maycomb. Her words carry substantial weight.
Mrs. Dubose and Her Camellias
"Snowfall-on-the-Mountains" camellias
Annotation: To empathize fully the symbolism of the camellias, it helps to know that the camellia is the country flower of Alabama and that it is associated with the Knights of the White Camellia, a Ku Klux Klan-like organization, founded in 1867, to enforce white supremacy in the post-Ceremonious State of war Due south.
11. When Jem and Scout visit Mrs. Dubose to read to her, she "would hound Jem" on her "favorite subjects." What are they?
Her camellias and Atticus's "nigger-loving propensities."
12. As we accept seen, Harper Lee links Mrs. Dubose'southward camellias with her views on race and her insulting behavior toward Atticus and the children. How practise these associations explain why Jem attacks the flowers?
When Jem cuts the heads off the camellias, he is responding to the insults Mrs. Dubose she has delivered against his male parent and the Finch family. He cannot attack her, and then he does the side by side all-time thing: he goes after her prized flowers. The camellias are a stand up-in for the old lady herself.
13. Later Jem attacks the flowers, Mrs. Dubose taunts him by saying that the blossoms have re-grown. Considering the associations that cluster around Mrs. Dubose'south camellias, what does their re-growth symbolize?
It symbolizes the resilience of the attitudes and values held by Mrs. Dubose.
14. In symbolic terms, what does Jem'south admission that he would pull the camellia bushes upwards by their roots propose?
Together the camellias and Mrs. Dubose symbolize the former Confederate South whose attitudes toward race still securely inform the community of Maycomb. Jem's admission that he would pull them up by the roots suggests that he stands in profound opposition to those attitudes. He is likely to exist far less accepting of the tradition represented past Mrs. Dubose than his male parent is.
Judging Mrs. Dubose
15. What causes does Atticus cite to account for what Mrs. Dubose says and does?
He attributes her views and her beliefs to her historic period and ill-health.
16. What other causes might he take cited?
If, in preparing for the lesson, you had your students explore the events Mrs. Dubose feel growing up in the post-Ceremonious War Southward, you might refer to that word here. She came of age when the ideology of white supremacy dominated Southern culture, and undoubtedly that culture had a powerful shaping result on her. Harper Lee presents her as a living apotheosis of it. She is frail and passing but nonetheless a potent public spokeswoman for the racism she grew up with.
17. Is Atticus letting Mrs. Dubose off too hands? Explain your respond.
Some students volition concur with Atticus that the old woman — sick, befuddled by morphine, and dying — should not be held responsible for her views or her behavior. Simply judging from what we run across of her, neither her views not her beliefs is a contempo development, resulting from the deterioration of her health. Obviously, she has launched her opinions from her front end porch for some time, and Atticus himself acknowledges her long-standing racist views. Atticus's exoneration of Mrs. Dubose could be interpreted as an evasion, a deliberate refusal to acknowledge her complicity in sustaining the town's racism.
18. When, at the stop of the chapter, Jem opens Mrs. Dubose'due south gift, he calls her an "old hell-devil"? Why?
Jem has felt the direct sting of her racist insults.
nineteen. Atticus is quick to translate Mrs. Dubose's gift as a peace offering and to clinch Jem that "everything is all right." Is "everything all right"?
For Atticus it is. He sees the community of Maycomb as a web of personal relationships, and when Mrs. Dubose mends hers with Jem, everything is, indeed, all correct. Just for Jem everything does not appear to be all right.
20. By presenting Jem with the souvenir of a camellia, what, in symbolic terms, is Mrs. Dubose asking Jem to do?
Symbolically, she is request Jem to accept the heritage she and her camellias represent.
21. Atticus defines "existent courage" equally persevering in a lost cause, seeing a struggle though fifty-fifty though you know you are going to lose. Why would this definition of backbone be specially appealing to him, and why would it cause him to adore Mrs. Dubose?
This is the sort of backbone he is displaying in his defense of Tom Robinson. He knows he will not convince the jury to accept Robinson's word over that of the Ewells, but he is forging ahead anyhow. Believing that Mrs. Dubose displays the same courage, he may encounter his struggle in the Robinson example reflected in her struggle against drug habit.
Scout and Atticus Finch, from "To Impale A Mockingbird," 1962.
22. What does Jem do afterward his begetter praises Mrs. Dubose?
He throws the box that contained her gift into the burn.
23. What does this action propose near his response to Mrs. Dubose, her gift, and his begetter's view of the old lady?
It suggests that, at least to some caste, he rejects all three. Information technology is important to notation, however, that he does keep the blossom.
24. What does Jem's "fingering" of the camellia advise?
The meaning of this act is ambiguous. Jem may simply exist trying to calm down after his confrontation with his father, or he may be reconsidering his opinion of Mrs. Dubose. Then, too, he might exist critically questioning what seems to be his father'southward easy, conceited acceptance of Mrs. Dubose's virulent racism.
25. How do yous interpret Atticus'south render to his reading of the local newspaper?
The meaning of this act is ambiguous, likewise. Atticus may simply be resuming his bookish ways, but students may sense some smugness or complacency on Atticus's part as he settles in to read while his son broods. Clearly, he has not convinced Jem that Mrs. Dubose was a "great lady." The boy is in some way processing his confrontation with his father. Atticus seems unaware of the seriousness of what but happened. His retreat to his paper may amount to an evasion of the truth about Mrs. Dubose and about Maycomb itself.
26. In affiliate 11 Jem, Scout, and Atticus judge Mrs. Dubose. "Jem and I hated her," says Scout. "She was roughshod." "She was horrible." However Atticus considers her a "great lady," the "bravest person" he always knew. Do yous agree with the children or Atticus? Explicate your answer.
(Notation to teacher: You may want to make the response to this question a follow-up written consignment.)
Follow-Upward Assignment
Choose one of the following themes explored in chapter xi of To Kill a Mockingbird: racism, the generation gap, the role of history in the present, or another theme as designated by your instructor. In what ways tin yous see this same theme nowadays either in other literature or in our earth today? Employ specific examples to develop a comparison between chapter 11 and literature or the globe today. Organize and construct a short (two minutes) oral presentation on your findings and share with your classmates. As you speak, be sure to begin with a clear thesis and requite specific examples to prove your points.
Text:
- Harper Lee, To Impale A Mockingbird, HarperCollins: 1960 (Grand Central Publishing edition: 1982), chapter xi.
Images:
- Sentry (Mary Badham) and Mrs. Dubose (Ruth White) in "To Impale A Mockingbird," 1962. Universal International Pictures, Silver Screen Collection.
- Scout (Mary Badham) and Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in "To Impale A Mockingbird," 1962. Universal International Pictures, Silverish Screen Collection.
Source: https://americainclass.org/the-moral-vision-of-atticus-finch/
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