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Examples Of Mayella Ewell's Power In To Kill A Mockingbird

431 Words2 Pages

In To Kill A Mockingbird, based on class, gender, and race, Mayella Ewell does have power because, she has the power in the court and power over Tom. But one of her weakest points is her class, since she is poor, a lot of people look at them with no respect. But for her gender, she has power but little of it. During that time women had little power, but not as much as men. Mayella's strongest power is her race, she has power in court over Tom because she is white and Tom is African American.
In other words Mayella had little power in her class. People didn’t respect her because of her class, and you can tell Mayella is not used to being respected because in court Atticus calls Mayella “ma’am and miss” (DBQ Mayella, 15) and Mayella gets mad …show more content…

Women were only looked at for cleaning, washing clothes, and making things for the house. When Tom had told the court that Mayella had reached up to him and tried to kiss him. People didn’t believe him because women were not suppose to be doing things like that. People were more against Tom because he ran away when Bob Ewell saw him. For this reason, Mayella Ewells had a lot of power for the race. She had more power because she was white and that Tom was African American. Apart to why Tom had lost the case was because he had said “I felt bad for her.” During this time period African Americans were not supposed to feel sorry for Americans. At this time white people had more respect and privileges than African Americans. So people in court saw that as an insult. To put it differently, Mayella Ewells had power but, she had power in many differents ways. Her most powerful was her race. Her race had helped her out a lot due to Tom being African American. But for gender Mayella has power but no power. Mayella Ewell's weakest part about her is her class. She is really poor and has no education. Her class is what takes away her power. The conclusion is that Mayella is

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When thinking of the term power, the upper rich class may come to mind. Mayella definitely does not live in the rich class. She lives in “the town’s garbage dump” (document A). In document E, they say that she lives by blacks, which back in their time was seen as a bad and poor thing to do.

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This shows that Mayella Ewell is powerful through her class by saying she is the lowest of the low of classes. Mayella and her family are very poor and can not really afford anything extra. They also say that “... white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs…’. This is saying since she was in the lowest class, that she lived wherever and did whatever she needed to do to survive, therefore Mayella Ewell is powerful through class by living life to the fullest and doing everything she can to survive no matter the money or class.

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Although Mayella claimed rape, it still does not change the town’s point of view on her. “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin…. (Doc. A)” this explains and tells us that the Ewells are not rich nor do they have an abundant amount of money; since they do not have riches, that are not considered high-class nor middle-class, which mostly likely leads to the Ewells receiving little to no respect or value to the town. “White people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs (Doc. E)” this statement proves that, although she is a white woman, no one would get involved in her business or life because of her background and her “atmosphere”. “Long’s he keeps callin’ me ma’am and sayin’ Miss Mayella.

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Due to the fact that this event happened during the 1930’s in Alabama, it is no surprise that the jury would take a white person's story over a black citizens story. Throughout the book you gain the understanding that almost everybody in this town is racist, and mayella uses that fact against tom in the trial: “Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no case” (Lee 25). Even though atticus gave amazing arguments, and almost everyone knew Tom was not lying, the jury could not break the “social rules” of the town to show that Tom was indeed innocent. According to the NCBI it is more likely for a black defendant to be accused as guilty against a white defendant: “Racial bias appears to lead jurors in trials of stranger rape to convict Black defendants more readily and to sentence them more harshly than White defendants” (Hymes). This fact helps show that even if there were more people leaning to Tom’s freedom, the fact that he is black and Mayella is white would most likely end up in him being

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