Flowers In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Flowers are incredibly important, especially in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. There are three main flowers pointed out in the course of the whole story. There are Miss Maudie’s azaleas, Mrs Dubose’s camellias, and Mayella Ewell’s geraniums. Each bloom was assigned in this way solely for the relation towards their corresponding characters. Flowers can be used to express emotion or send a message, and those associated with Maudie, Dubose, and Mayella are vital to the novel.
Miss Maudie Atkinson is represented by azaleas. Azaleas symbolize emotional control and care for others. The flower could also symbolize elegance. This is shown when Maudie’s house burned down and she said, “Only thing I worried about last night was all

the danger and commotion it caused.” (page 97-98) Maudie worried for her neighbors and, instead of being upset over what she lost, focused on what could have happened had they not acted fast. Miss Maudie hardly seemed to care that her house burned down, and even joked about it. Another point showed that “Miss Maudie was staring at the smoking black hole in the yard, and Atticus shook his head to tell us she did not want to talk.” (page 95) Miss Maudie Atkinson was, as the azalea represents, keeping control of her emotions and knowing what was best for her neighbors. Even with the disaster that happened to her house, she proved her own strength and elegance towards the situation.
Mrs Dubose is represented by white camellias.

This is because camellias symbolize purity, excellence, and refinery. Also, the flower can bring luck when given to a man. When Atticus says to Jem, “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,” (page 149) he was telling his son about Mrs Dubose’s excellence. Even as she was dying, Dubose wanted to be the best version of herself. She was a recovering heroin addict, and she wanted to become “pure” or free of her addiction. Mrs Dubose was refining herself in order to not be held down by anything or anyone. Towards the end of the book, Scout narrates that “Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between.” (page 373) This applies to Mrs Dubose in an odd way, because she gave her flower to Jem instead of receiving one. Jem was given the flower as a sign that Mrs Dubose was not upset with him, but it also brought luck to him. The camellia was a representation of how she saw Jem’s growth as a person and a young

man.
Finally, Mayella is represented by red geraniums.

While geraniums have multiple meanings, the most important ones are stupidity, friendship, melancholy, and gentility. The first example of this is shown when the flowers are described to have been “...cared for as tenderly as Miss Maudie Atkinson...” (page 228) Mayella’s geraniums were taken care of so well because they were the one good thing in her life. Even with her low social status, she showed gentility and care through her flowers. Mayella was also shown to be very lonely, and she had no one except Tom Robinson to talk to outside of her dysfunctional family. She only wanted a friend to combat her sadness, so Tom became her target. However, Mayella did not understand other people well. She was stupid to have kissed Tom, because he was kind to her and yet she hurt

him.
The flowers as a whole are representative of the characters. While a flower can simply refer to the plant, it could also be used to point out greater or more important individuals. Flowers can be symbolic of the more beautiful individuals in a bunch. This definition can be applied to Maudie, Dubose, and Mayella because the flowers themselves are the more important aspects of their character. Maudie might not have been considered very “ladylike” to some individuals, but she had strength. Dubose was not kind, especially towards the Finch family, but she was determined to rid herself of addiction. Mayella was not bright, but she was respectable and in need of a friend.
The flowers in this novel are essential to how the reader views the characters and what we know of them. Harper Lee knew that these flowers related to the characters she wrote, and each meaning was a declaration of their personalities. Maudie’s azaleas accentuated her control, Mrs Dubose’s camellias proved her refinement, and Mayella’s geraniums showed her loneliness. Every flower is key to the novel, and the subtlety of their meaning is one to focus on and learn about.