Mayella Ewell
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the author exhibits Mayella Ewell uniquely. Towards the end of this novel, Mayella becomes involved in a major court case. While the readers become familiarized with her, they can comprehend her unique character. Mayella’s character structure is a unique one, because of her diverse character traits. She possesses good qualities and bad ones. Throughout her lifetime, Mayella is portrayed as hardworking, deceitful, and stubborn.
Harper Lee depicted Mayella Ewell as a hard worker. Mayella labored for hours around the household. Tragically, Mayella lost her mother as a child. Consequently, her father dropped her from school and made her complete chores around the house. In the courtroom, the judge questions Mayella on her life and why she did not attend school; she replies, “With two members of the family reading and writing, there was no need for the rest of them to learn – Papa needed us at home.” (245). Mayella desired to attend school and lead a strong life, however she was aware of her responsibilities, and that she had to raise her siblings; she would not abandon her family. Mayella Ewell completed a substantial amount of work for her family, and this trait occupies a large
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To illustrate, she developed a close friendship to a man named Tom Robinson. He seemed to care for her, and always comforted her when she seemed depressed. However, once noticing Mayella hanging out with Mr. Robinson, her father began to abuse her; because of Mr. Robinson’s race, the judge blamed for him the abuse. Surprisingly, in the courtroom for this case, Mayella supported her father and explained that Tom beat her up. Mayella explains about Tom Robinson, “He chunked me on the floor an’ choked me’n took advantage of me.” (241). Because of this example, one can conclude that Mayella demonstrated deceiving traits in To Kill a
Mayella Ewell is living in a racist southern community in the 1930’s. During this time no one was treated the same because of their skin color or if they were intelligent. Mayella has one thing that makes her powerful, her race. Laws back then was harsh. Between white and Negroes, both were wrong and mean to each other. Whites had
To KIll A Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee in the 1950’s. She based this book of her own home town. Two characters in the book are Boo Radley and Mayella Ewell and they are very different people. Although the book does not tell us much about Boo, the end reveals a caring and thoughtful guy. Mayella on the other hand, is racist and “white trash”. Mayella and Boo are also similar because they are both not liked much in Maycomb.
Mayella (white), goes to court against Tom Robinson (African American), where Mayella is accusing Tom Robinson of rape. When Atticus asks Mayella questions, Atticus mishears Mayella. An example of Mayella’s lack of power is when Atticus closes his argument by describing Mayella’s injuries during the court case. “Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left.”
It is Mayella's deceit that brings Tom Robinson to trial. Though she may not be forgiven for this lie, Atticus and Scout feel sympathy for her because of the terrible poverty in which she lives. Whenever Scout feels sorry for Mayella we do as well as we are viewing the trial from her point of view.
During the Tom Robinson Trial, Mayella is called up to the chair, asked a few questions and after she has had enough, she screams, "I got somethin ' to say an ' then I ain 't gonna say 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, 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-" (She is scared of the town knowing that she is wrong and Tom robinson is innocent. Mayella uses this case to cover up the shame in her life because she is extremely lonely, has no self-esteem, and overwhelmed with the amount of unhappiness in her life. Mayella gets extremely defensive in this quote because she knows that everything Atticus has brung up is good evidence and she can’t hold her own. In the jury, it was full of all white men. Mayella acted timid and helpless and suggested in her comment that the man of the jury be brave and heroic. She becomes someone who is vulnerable, valuable and needs to be
After years of emotional and physical abuse inflicted by her father, Mayella was finally able to control one thing in her life. Having an affair with Tom Robinson, a black man, was an enticingly risky idea to Mayella; in the 1930’s, racism was still alive and especially prominent in the South, so the idea of a white woman being romantically involved with a black man was practically taboo. She was well-aware of the consequences that would come with that interaction when she forced him to kiss her, so when she was caught, she had to blame Tom in order to avoid the shameful truth caused by her years of loneliness and abuse. By the time Mayella reached the stand and swore upon the Bible in court, she had already decided that she had to lie about what had really
To conclude, Mayella should be fully responsible for her actions. She is someone that should be condemned instead of pitied because she is conscious while deciding to kiss a black man, kills Tom Robinson by giving false testimony in court, and knows in advance the consequences of her actions. Tom’s miserable fate is in sharp contrast with Mayella’s, as this event in To Kill a Mockingbird is meant to reflect how white people are easily forgiven even when all evidence is pointing against them. Unfortunately, Scottsboro Boys’ end is the same as Tom’s – all but one of them were convicted and sentenced to death for something that did not happen.
As further evidence is procured, this is proven to be false. The truth is that Mayella’s father beat her for making romantic advances towards Tom. Mayella is unlike the rest of the Ewells in the sense that she likes to keep herself tidy, and lives in a more sophisticated manner than the rest of her family. This makes me infer that she is quite taciturn, and a kind-hearted person who wouldn’t lie about what happened that day if it weren’t for something taking over her conscience. Being threatened by her acrimonious father to lie about what really happened set aside what she knew to be right and pushed her to lie in the trial. Both pressure and fear make people do what they know is not the right thing to do, even though their conscience tells them otherwise. Doing the wrong thing may dispel fears or pressure that is put on for a certain instance. There are many reasons why people do what they know isn’t right even though their conscience tells them not to, but sometimes this can help them construct their values, and improve on how susceptible they are to their
After all that physical and mental abuse she faces, Mayella does something drastic. She accuses an African American man of rape knowing, her being a white woman, he would get in tremendous trouble. People cannot say whether it was right or wrong of her to do what she did. What they can say is that at the moment she was powerless to do otherwise. For example, even though her race can be deemed an upside to her specific situation, it has major downsides.
Mayella Ewell and her family live on welfare and hunting. They do not have their own money to spend when they want to. There was a whole different perspective on the way that Mayella’s house looked like: “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. . . . Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls . . . What passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts . . . Enclosed by this barricade was a dirty yard . . .” (Document A). Mayella never got to see the goodness behind living in a nice environment. Where she grew up was not a typical white family house. Everyone that the Ewell’s know, knows that they live in what is called the “dump”. It is a trash old run down spot where their house is. The life that Mayella was living was not healthy at all. She was poor and had no one to be friends with her: “Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world” (Document E). Mayella was not social due to the fact that she was poor and of course no one wanted to hang out with poor people. Mayella was not social due to the fact that she was poor and of course no one wanted to hang out with poor people. She was not used to people being kind to her so she never thought that it could actually happen. With the poor environment that Mayella lives in, allows her have no one to talk to. No one was a fan of her and would rather not be around her. She was always on the opposing side as everyone, even when she tried to show respect for the
Although Mayella Ewell eventually testifies against Tom Robinson on false grounds, her backstory and true nature is innocent, and her “mockingbird” only dies when her father corrupts her. First, when Scout is describing the Ewell’s living condition, the novel states, “Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson… People said they were Mayella Ewell’s” (Lee 228). Being raised in the conditions that she was, Mayella’s attempts at rectifying her family’s image, even in these small, personal acts, captures the way she wishes to live and how she thinks. Caring for the geraniums and trying to maintain some semblance of cleanliness, especially when compared to the rest of her family, gives the reader
The concept of a white woman being touched, let alone raped by an African American male was an assumption in the little town of Maycomb Alabama, 1930’s. During this period Mayella is considered helpless due to being a female as well as lonely and afraid considering her status as a poor white piece of trash. She manipulates people by using her social class, gender, and race to her advantage. In particular, her accusations made against Tom Robinson, an African American man. These factors lead to her gaining power with the trial and conviction of Tom Robinson. Race refers to the categorization of people based on physical differences.(“Is Mayella Powerful?” 7) Mayella Ewell had perquisites due to her race, which helped her during the conviction.
“You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” said by Atticus Finch. This quote explains how a person can be different in the inside than they are in the outside such as, a character named Mayella Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird was a book set during the 1930’s, written by Harper Lee that explained the struggles of segregation and racism. But was Mayella’s race the only aspect that made her powerful? Although Mayella can be seen as a powerful character due to her race, the areas she lacked in was her social class and gender. The concepts that will be explained will be why Mayella Ewell was not powerful because of her social class
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell experiences a great amount of fear towards her father when she almost messes up the story Bob Ewell, her father, forces her to say in court. Because of this fear, Mayella will
Mayella is the daughter of Bob Ewell and both of them actually live in trash and they are known as white trash.They live in trash near where the blacks live which Bob and Mayella do not like at all.They do not like their skin color because they don't like how they are different. Mayella could not have any friends because she hated the blacks and those are the only people she can talk to that are close are the blacks.Mayella is very poor and she does not like anyone and hates they way people talk to her like when Atticus called her what she does not want him to call which makes her think that is bad.She was never interested in other people and wants to stay away from them. She judges them on the way they talk to them and the way their skin color is because she thinks blacks are a threat and they way people talk to her are mean things even though they try to be really nice to her. Scout says “Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world” This shows that Mayella is lonely because Mayella is always alone or with the children to take care of which she can't leave home because she has to take care of the children and that can't get her out of her home. This causes Mayella to become lonely because she is judging them the wrong way like she judges the blacks because they are black and she