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Why does Miss Maudie garden in To Kill a Mockingbird?

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Miss Maudie gardened because of her background and her values. We learn in Chapter 5 that Miss Atkinson was the daughter of Dr. Frank Buford. His "profession was medicine and his obsession was anything that grew in the ground, so he stayed poor." Growing up with a father who apparently valued botany over his livelihood would have fostered a strong appreciation in a young Maudie. Miss Maudie was also a Baptist, not a strongly religious one, but she loved God and His creations, so almost all of her waking hours were spent outside gardening. This was her alternative to worshiping the way most of the ladies in Maycomb did. It wasn't that she didn't have an impressive knowledge of scripture; she could quote passages along with the "foot-washing Baptists" in the county. I think she found more value in her personal relationship with her spirituality than in organized religion, where much corruption and hypocrisy could be found. Miss Maudie was a widower, and it is possible that her obsession with her garden was an outlet for her grief, and a way for her to nurture something and add beauty to her life. 



Miss Maudie hated her house: time spent indoors was time wasted... She loved everything that grew in God’s earth, even the weeds.


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