In To Kill A Mockingbird, how does the event of shooting the mad dog and the children's encounter with Mrs. Dubose contribute to the novel as a...

In my opinion, you could write something about the cycle
of life. There is a time and place for everyone and thing in the order of our world.
Each situation is slotted into a master scheme of time. But all things have since our
study of this world eventually come to an end. Both the "mad dog" and Mrs. Dubose had
their time, and their times have come to an end. It is time for other things and for
some reason, these two items are being removed from time.

I
would say that one of Harper Lee's messages is that racism needs to be over. She was
writing in the late 50s and was writing about the 30s. The Civil Rights movement was
just about here, in fact her work may have contributed to the movement. Racism had a
time in our history, we learned from it, but now it needed to be
done.

Both the mad dog and Mrs. Dubose were put down with
dignity. Atticus shot the dog because he was the only one who could kill the dog in one
shot, minimizing the dog's pain. Mrs. Dubose needed the children's reading to help her
not think about her pain as she worked to die free. In a way, Atticus is trying to put
racism down, in its place in history with dignity. He is not helping the black man kill
or defeat the white man cruelly, but he is working within the court system to get it
done right.