Moniem's English Journal

Chapter 11 summary

How does Harper Lee present courage in Chapter 11?

The definition of courage is being able to to face danger or pain without fear.With this in mind, I believe that Harper Lee shows courage in chapter 11 through Mrs Dubose. In the events of this chapter we meet Mrs Dubose for the first time, in which she is shown as contemptuous, and we find out she is dying. She is also a morphine addict, she eventually wants to die clean and so in her endeavor to do so she relinquishes her addiction to morphine, knowing that she will die quicker and face more pain. In the process Mrs Dubose faces pain without fear, this is courage. Additionally, Atticus explains to Jem ” 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. “

Posted

in

by

dreevil

Tags:

Comments

One response to “Chapter 11 summary”

  1. jnorth Avatar
    jnorth

    Hello Moniem,

    Your interpretation and exploration of courage is clear and is supported by examples and then evidence from the text.

    To develop this further
    1) Link this back to Ch 10 – why does Atticus illustrate what courage is after the shooting of the dog?

    2) Does your paragraph structure here allow for analysis? How might you change this? If you use your quotation earlier – you can then analyse the language of the quotation and explore how this helps to enhance meaning.

    Reply

React!