What did Scout learn in Chapter 11?

In Chapter 11 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout learned what true courage looks like. After Mrs. Dubose insulted Atticus to the children, Jem “simply went mad” and beat the tops off of her camellia bushes with the baton he had just bought Scout with his twelfth birthday money, and then snapped the baton. As a punishment, Jem is charged to read to the old lady six days a week for a month, for a...

In Chapter 11 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout learned what true courage looks like. After Mrs. Dubose insulted Atticus to the children, Jem “simply went mad” and beat the tops off of her camellia bushes with the baton he had just bought Scout with his twelfth birthday money, and then snapped the baton. As a punishment, Jem is charged to read to the old lady six days a week for a month, for a couple of hours after school. Scout tagged along, giving our narrator a front row seat to the condition of the ailing woman. Toward the end of each of their sessions, Mrs. Dubose would fall into “fits”, unable to focus on her surroundings or control her face. Every day, the sessions grew longer and longer, and her fits eventually passed. About a month after Jem was released from his duties, Mrs. Dubose passed away. Atticus explains to the children that her fits were caused by her morphine addiction. Scout learns that Mrs. Dubose knew she was going to die, and painfully, but she wanted to go according to her values, “beholden to nothing and nobody”. The old woman lived her last few months fighting her addiction, suffering greatly, even though she knew that she would soon pass anyway. Atticus explained:

“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.”