Mrs. Dubose teaches us about inner strength and manners and the right way to do things while Harper Lee uses her as a tool to teach the characters these important lessons. Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict from her cancer. She had the strength to fight her addiction. The quote stated by Atticus fits this situation best, ."..she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that's what she did." This shows how much inner strength she had. To be able to pre-occupy yourself to stop doing something is rather hard. Even though she threw fits like Jem said, ."..that's what her fits were"" Mrs. Dubose used her words to keep her mind off the morphine. With knowing this, she would experience terrible withdrawal symptoms, but refusing to die until she was "beholden to nothing and nobody." This meant, she could not get too close to...