My mother had her demons. Things of her past would keep her up at night, and at times I would hear her sobbing, incoherently babbling about a man named Tom. She would forget these night terrors by morning, I learned that after one particularly horrid night that I had spent by her side comforting her. I asked her about it the next morning, and she had no recollection of the previous night’s events, or at least that is what she led me to believe. From an early age, I knew not to ask her about the man named Tom, or the blood would drain from her already pale face and she’d spend the next few hours locked in her room. Mayella really never knew how to be a mother, having had me in her early twenties with a man that had vanished when he heard the news of her …show more content…
As pages went by, the entries became even darker than they had already been. After years of leading a lonely life, she had done something unforgivable in the eyes of the citizens of Maycomb: she had seeked the touch of a black man. To cover up her actions, she testified against Tom Robinson and accused him of raping her. But even after she had won the case, Mayella had become overridden with guilt, especially after Tom had been shot by some townspeople. To add on to her situation, her father had been found dead, seeming to have killed himself. As I reached the end of the journal, I felt more connected with my mother than I had ever been. I now knew who the man named Tom was, and the struggles she had gone through. Reading the diary pages, I had realized that the kind of guilt that my mother had for what she had done was so deeply rooted inside of her, she would have never recovered or let go of that overwhelming feeling. In a way, her death had torn her away from the clutches of self-condemnation she had put herself in ever since the incident with Tom
In Maycomb, Alabama they faced change. It is a dreary town without much action, then Mayella Ewell accused Tom Robinson of raping her. I went to the trial and the result the jury handed out was the wrong decision. Mayella’s and her father, Bob’s testimonies were both false and staged. It was evident Bob was the one who raped her.
Another reason how Mayella is powerful is by her gender. It states that he “... tried to help her…”. This is saying since Mayella is a girl that a guy will do anything to help a girl that needs help. It states “yes, suh I felt sorry for her…”. According to this statement, it
Recently, a negro named Tom Robinson has been jailed for supposedly raping a white woman, whose name is Mayella Violet Ewell. This is certainly biased since the family of Mayella did not provide any fact or evidence, rather only one witness who could have easily lied. Therefore, Tom Robinson could have been falsely accused of doing something a man like himself wouldn’t do. There are several reasons that suggest that Tom Robinson is innocent.
Then some people thought that Tom was innocent but the judge decided to make Tom go to prison. In the book it said that Mayella hugged and kissed Tom on the cheek. From this I can infer that Mayella is desperate and can get away with this because Tom Robinson is a black person. This reminds me of a couple southern movies I’ve watched where black people are always the first to suspect because of their color. Tom Robinson on trial for his life said Bob Ewell yelled “whore I’ll kill you” when he saw Mayella kiss Tom from the window.
“Everybody’s gotta learn. Nobody’s born knowin’” -Harper Lee. Age alters our perspective. Maturity changes our understanding.
That’s one part I didn’t like about the book. The stereotypes of the black families of Maycomb. As soon as Bob Ewell turned Tom Robinson in for “raping” his daughter the whole white community believed it because he was black. He was a kind, loving father and husband. But no one bothered to get to know the real him or see past the color of his skin to really know that.
After watching her father fight hard for a case he was bound to loose, hearing all the mean names her family and Tom was called and hearing the news of Tom’s death she began to understand the reality of racism. “Just what I said. Grandma says it's bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he's turned out a nigger-lover we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He's ruinin' the family, that's what he's doin'.” (Lee, 110)
Abuse has a bad effect on children everywhere causing them to lash out in different ways as Mayella did in her environment. For example, kids that come from negligent families often have trouble connecting with others. Throughout the story, Mayella has shown signs that prove that she lacked simple social skills to understand who she should trust or when people are being nice to her. Further, Mayella exhibits attachment issues and tendency to take risky sexual decisions such as she had done with Tom Robinson, which essentially can be attributed to be consequence of abuse perpetrated by Bob Ewell and his out of control drinking habit. The fact that she knew the consequences of abuse should have been a deterrent to her misbehavior with Tom Robinson During Mayella’s testimony, Mayella’s father is exposed as an alcoholic who is intolerable when drunk.
This past week, without doubt, has been nothing short of a heated one here in Maycomb. As of recent, Thomas Robinson, a twenty-five year-old Negro, was put on trial for the accused rape of nineteen year-old Mayella Ewell. Judge Taylor covered the trial, with Solicitor Mr. Gilmer prosecuting, and Mr. Finch covering defense for Mr. Robinson. The trial begun with Sheriff Heck Tate retelling his account. He details Mr. Ewell reporting the rape of Mayella Ewell on November 21st, her sustained injuries, including a choice of not calling a doctor due to financial issues.
In the novel: To Kill A Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell, a poor white woman, accused Tom Robinson, an African American, of rape. The Ewell’s are very indigent and her father, Bob Ewell, gets drunk and abuses Mayella. Since Mayella is very poor, this makes her not so powerful. In Maycomb, Alabama, A poor white woman named Mayella Ewell who lives behind the town garbage dump, accuses Tom Robinson, an African American, of rape.
First, she had to make up a story about Tom Robinson because she had kissed a black man, which was frowned upon for a white woman to do. “She was white and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society in unspeakable: she kissed a black man”(272). Mayella is also used as an example when she convinces the jury to convict an innocent black man because of Southern Womanhood. “That n***** took advantage of me, an’ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanna do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin’ cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you”(251).
Tom Robinson is a mockingbird in that he doesn't do one thing wrong. All he does is provide help to the people he interacts with. That is exactly how he got in trouble. Tom Robinson was helping Mayella with some chores. He was humming a melody and when he chopped up the dresser drawers.
“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it.” Harper Lee had used the tragic situation of Tom Robinsons trial to explore many themes including, racism and differences in privilege. “To kill a mockingbird” written by Harper Lee explores many situations linked to the broad idea of racism throughout the systems of Maycomb and differences in privilege in many different ways. The quote that Atticus argues with explains that in Maycomb, all men and things are equal.
Her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking. When she tried to put the evidence of her offense away, instead of being honest, she had put a man’s life in danger. However, Mayella is not a criminal. She is simply a woman who carries a heavy burden with no one to support or respect her. Mayella is a victim of abuse and
The testimonies reveal how deep-rooted the racism within Maycomb runs, as it is present even in court rulings and how casually present it is. The court is taking place, and the order of prosecutor’s witnesses who are: Mr. Heck Tate, the sheriff; Mr. Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father; and Mayella Ewell, the one who is accusing Tom Robinson of raping her. When it’s Mr. Ewell’s turn to speak, he does so with many racial slurs and slang embedded in his accusations. When relaying what he saw to the jury, he points at Tom and yells “―I seen that black n*gger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!” Mr. Ewell, who, although, has never been a part of a court case or viewed one, doesn’t truly care, or notice, that so far into the formal case, not one person has used racial slang to talk about Tom, and uses the term n*gger quite casually.