What Does Miss Maude Symbolize In To Kill A Mockingbird

How can a flower represent a character? In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many flowers that are assigned to different characters. The azaleas, geraniums, and camellias are just a few.
Azaleas are known for being beautiful and opening their blossoms all at once. The azaleas represent femininity or softness. Miss Maudie represents strength and integrity. When her house got burned down she just started working on her garden again as if nothing had even happened. “Miss Maudie hated her house: time spent indoors was time wasted. She was a widow, a chameleon lady who worked in her flower beds in an old straw hat and men’s coveralls, but after her five o’clock shower she would appear on the porch and reign over the street and magisterial beauty.” pg. 56 Miss Maudie
People said they were Mayella Ewell’s. ” Mayella Ewell symbolizes the geraniums in more ways than one. Geraniums can mean preference or gentility. Mayella prefers a more gentle lifestyle. She’s just a young girl that doesn’t know any better. Mayella wants more for her life and for herself. Geraniums can also mean stupidity. Mayella wasn’t necessarily stupid but she just wasn’t raised to know right from wrong. “I got somethin’ to say then I ain’t gonna say it no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an’ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanta do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don’t come to nothin’- your ma’amin and Miss Mayellerin don’t come to nothin’, Mr. Finch.” The Ewells lived behind a dump. Lee described their home as a playground for an insane child. Tending to those flowers as graciously as she does, Mayella is proving beauty can lie beneath the ugly. Mayella’s poor and unloved but there is something beautiful about