During the Great Depression, people had to do anything to get what they needed. One specific case, called The Scottsboro Boys Trial, follows the case of a group of 9 black boys who encounter trouble when they jump into a moving train car containing food and a group of white people. The white people were hoarding all of the food so they and the black people got into a fight. After losing the fight and getting kicked off the train, the white group of people (who had 2 girls dressed as males) falsely accused the black people of rape and the jury found them guilty, even though there was no medical evidence. Harper Lee bases the characters and their situations in her book To Kill a Mockingbird off of her real life, since her father was the defense …show more content…
Tom Robinson was introduced as the black man Atticus Finch, our main character, has to defend in the rape case against Mayella Violet Ewell. Atticus Finch is an honorable and very trustworthy man, thats why he was appointed to the case, because everyone knows he will actually try and defend Tom. Mayella is an Ewell and in the city of Maycomb County, Alabama, the Ewells are literally trash. They live in the trashiest area of Maycomb and are dirty. Mayella claimed Tom Robinson raped her. She said that she invited Tom in the gate for him to chop down a dresser. She offered him some lemonade and he followed her inside, attacked her, and raped her. There were bruises all over the left side of her face, so she had to have been attacked. Tom Robinson, the defendant, claims that Miss Ewell invited him inside the house, told him to get something off the top of the dresser, pulled him down, and started kissing him even when he asked her to stop. Tom Robinson is also a cripple. His left hand doesn't work, so he couldn't have beat Mayella. Also, no medical evidence was ever presented for the case so no evidence of a rape occurring actually exists. After the jury had been gone for 3 hours discussing the testimonies, they entered the courtroom with the final verdict. Tom Robinson was found guilty. After he was taken to jail, he was shot 17 times and unfortunately killed. Tom's death was in a newspaper …show more content…
Mrs.Dubose, a racist, old, white lady, would stop the kids to torment them every time they walked past her house. The kids are Jem and Scout Finch. Their dad is Atticus. Jem Finch was Atticus’s 11 year old son and as he was going through puberty, he started to understand the nasty things Mrs.Dubose would say to to him and his little sister Jean Louise, or as she liked to be called, Scout. One day, as the kids are walking past her house, Mrs.Dubose doesn't talk about the kids, but their father. Furious, Jem decided to rip the tops of her white camellias off. Scout narrated, “He did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs.Dubose owned” (Lee 118). Going through puberty, his innocent perspective of the world was getting chopped away, just as the white camellias got chopped down. Atticus found out and made Jem go read to Mrs.Dubose for 2 hours every day after school and on Saturdays for a month. A few weeks after the reading month was over, Mrs.Dubose had died. Atticus then explained that Mrs.Dubose was a drug addict who wanted to die clean, so Jem was a distractor for her. He told Jem that he wanted him to see what real bravery looked like. After their talk, Atticus handed Jem a box which was a gift from Mrs.Dubose, a white camellia. Scout says, “Jem...picked up the camellia and when i went off to ef i saw him fingering the wide petals” (Lee
The case between Tom Robinson and the Ewell’s seemed to have a predictable ending considering that it is very rare for a black man to win a case against a white man. But considering the great lawyer Tom Robinson was given, the outcome could go either way, in favor of the Ewell’s or saving Tom Robinson from going to jail. I was sitting in the front row ready to be bored to sleep by the jury but, instead I was surprised by the questions asked by the lawyers and the responses delivered by the four given testimonies from Heck Tate, Bob Ewell, Mayella Ewell and Tom Robinson.
Men of the jury, we are here today to discuss the case of Mayella Ewell and Tom Robinson. On November 21, Tom Robinson allegedly raped Mayella Ewell when she demanded him to go inside her home to break up a chiffarobe for her, and as stated before Mayella had stated this is the first time she let Mr. Robinson into her home. When she let Tom Robinson in, he grabbed her from behind and took advantage of her while she screamed and did her best to fight him off. She ended up with finger marks around her neck and an injury to her right eye. Mr. Ewell testified that he witness the rape happen through the window, and he described the room as ‘slung around’ as if there was a fight.
The book “To Kill A Mockingbird” was written by “Harper Lee”. In this book there are families that live in Macomb County with the neighbors within the County making judgements on each family, besides a man named “Atticus Finch”, which he is a lawyer. Atticus had two children, a girl named Scout or Jean Louise Finch, and a boy named Jem or Jeremy Atticus Finch. So there is a trial going on and Atticus was chosen to defend an African American, which everyone is disliking him for, because he is going to actually try to defend him. The man he is defending is named “Tom Robinson” and he is on trial for being accused of rape by Mr.Ewell.
The Tom Robinson trial that occurred during the summer of this year was a result of an accusation of rape against Robinson by the Ewell family. According to Sheriff Heck Tate’s testimony, he was called to the Ewell residence on the night of November 21st. He found Miss Mayella Ewell beaten up and sprawled on the ground. “Found her lying on the floor in the middle of the front room, one on the right as you go in”(190). After questioning by Robinson’s lawyer, Atticus Finch, he stated that despite Miss Ewell’s injuries, a doctor had not been called.
“You may choose to look away, but you may never say that you did not know” (William Wilberforce). In To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus Finch juggles being a single father to his two children and practicing law in his small town. When Atticus defends a young black man who is being accused rape, the town of Macomb becomes polarized on the case and the trial reveals many truths about the people of the Maycomb. Atticus Finch works passionately to fight for the minority, which amplifies the importance of justice.
Atticus agrees to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman. Because of Atticus’s decision, the children are now abused by the other students at school. Alexandra, Atticus’s sister, comes to live with the Finches that summer. Atticus provides clear evidence that Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell are lying about the accusations. Mayella was caught by her father when Tom came over and was accused of rape.
Although Atticus is crucial to his children 's growth, he can’t give a “feminine” input which sometimes flaws his parenting, but Lee proves that good parenting requires a person to do the right thing, no matter the circumstances through fairness, perspective, and integrity. Atticus’ fairness displays he is a good parent because he considers that everyone deserves a chance to be understood and have motives for their actions. After disclosing the news to his son and daughter of Tom’s death, Atticus says, “Depends on how you look at it. What was one Negro, more or less, among two hundred of ‘em? He wasn’t Tom to them, he was an escaping prisoner” (Lee 235).
Would you defend a man for money, or for a greater cause? Others would say money, but in To Kill A Mockingbird, there was more to that for Mr. Finch. Atticus was wise to defend Tom Robinson because, he believes everyone deserves a fair trial, wants to demonstrate that you should stand up for what you believe in, and wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t defend him. Atticus wasn’t doing this because it was his job or for the money, he saw more than that in this case. He saw that maybe he could maybe show Maycomb a bit of light, that they don’t need to be discriminating men and women like Tom.
She nagged them whenever she saw them pass by, sometimes saying offensive things to them or their family. In a fit of rage, Jem decided to ruin her front yard to try to teach her a lesson about not messing with his family. His consequence for doing so was to go and read to the old lady for two hours a day. He then read to Mrs. Dubose until a month before she passed away. Little did Jem know that she was a morphine addict, she wanted Jem to read for her
“In the corner of the room was a brass bed, and in the bed was Mrs. Dubose. I wondered if Jems activities had put her there and for a moment I felt sorry for her.” The reason why Jem and Scout were at Mrs. Dubose’s house, was because Jem and Scout were walking by her house when Dubose started yelling at the kids saying that Atticus is not any better than the “niggers and trash he works for.” Jem lost his temper and takes Scouts baton he bought for her and snaps it in half. Jem destroys all of
Fearless Leader In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird Atticus Finch searches for true justice despite racial adversities in Maycomb County. Atticus defends an African American man for a vicious crime in a prestigious community. As a single father, Atticus teaches life lessons to his children during this tumultuous time. Atticus Finch demonstrates empathy while often putting his family and himself in danger.
Atticus Finch’s closing argument in Tom Robinson’s criminal trial attempted to prove that Tom Robinson was innocent of the crime of raping Mayella Ewell, and thus should be found innocent by the jury. Atticus supports his claim by first reviewing the evidence both for and against Tom Robinson's innocence and attempts to disprove the evidence against him; he then demonstrates that he is sympathetic towards Mayella Ewell's circumstances but still holds her accountable despite his pity for her situation; multiple times in the trial he addresses the men of the jury as “gentlemen” in an attempt to elevate their status above that of the Ewells as well as give them the pressure of the responsibility of doing the right thing. Atticus’s purpose is
Jem couldn’t comprehend why she would say negative things about Atticus. Later after her death, though, he finally sees the reasoning behind her actions. When Jem receives the camellia from Mrs. Dubose, he thinks that she is trying to make him feel guilty about what he's done. The camellias also hold bravery, that Mrs. Dubose wants to pass on to
He tries to prepare his children for what they are about to endure as the trials gets closer. Mrs. Dubose, their sick neighbor, makes fun of their father even though he is nice to her. Jem and Scout go to the store to use Jem’s birthday money and they pass her house. On their way back from town, Jem takes Scout’s baton that he got for her and uses it to ruin her camellias. He ends up breaking Scout’s baton.
Atticus shows us how he has taught his children important moral lessons on integrity. Atticus sends Jem down to Mrs. Dubose's house to confess what he had done and to apologize for his actions. While doing so, we learn that Mrs. Dubose has a task for Jem, “She wants me to come every afternoon after school and Saturdays and read to her out loud for two hours...for a month” (105). During this task that has been bestowed upon Jem we learn that Mrs. Dubose is not as healthy as she should be. Mrs. Dubose is described through the eyes of Scout like