As a punishment both Mrs. Dubose and his father, Atticus, make Jem and Scout read to Mrs. Dubose everyday after school for a month. After the seemingly everlasting month was completed, Atticus forces them to continue reading to the shrew for one last week. Jem is infuriated and deems this week unfair. A week or so later the sickly Mrs. Dubose passes away. While describing the reasoning behind the additional week of reading Atticus tells 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. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew. (Lee 112).
Atticus informs Jem that Mrs. Dubose had become a morphine addict after taking it for years as as a painkiller due to her illness. Despite her doctor putting her on the drug, she wanted to die, as Atticus would say, free. Before she passed, she requested that her caretaker fix up a box for Jem. When Atticus presents the box to Jem, he opens it. Inside the box is a perfect camellia. He threw the box in the fire out of disgust. After Atticus tells Jem about Mrs. Dubose's courage, Scout finds him fingering the wide petals of the flower. He is reflecting on courage. By telling Mrs. Dubose's story to Jem, Atticus not only teaches him what courage is but he is also teaches him what it takes to walk in someone else's shoes, see their perspective and be informed and enlightened by their experiences; also, this message further emphasizes the understanding of point of view which is paralleled in John F. Kennedy's speech. In his Civil Rights Address Kennedy teaches the American people a similar message to Atticus' by questioning the peoples' willingness to walk in the shoes of an African-American.