How Does Mayella Sympathize In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird
The novel To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, portrays Mayella Ewell as a victim of rape. I feel as though Mayella’s situation is extremely sympathized as the story goes on. Mayella is only a 19 year old female, as stated in chapter 18 when Scouts says that Mayella is “obviously a terrified nineteen-year-old-girl”. Before knowing about how Mayella’s life is, I did not feel sympathy for her at all. For all I knew at the moment, she was just a white, ignorant adolescent who accused an innocent black man, Tom Robinson, of rape when there are no signs of rape at all. Later in the story, you find out that Mayella lives in a rough, unsteady home with a drunk as a father and seven siblings whom she is basically raising

Mayella is like the beautiful, bright rainbow in a dull, sad, gray sky. The Ewell house is described as "plank walls were supplemented with sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with tin cans hammered flat, so only its general shape suggested its original design: square, with four tiny rooms opening onto a shotgun hall, the cabin rested uneasily upon four irregular lumps of limestone. Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls, which in the summertime were covered with greasy strips of cheesecloth to keep out the varmints that feasted on Maycomb’s refuse." Mayella has a beautiful garden outside the house, which is the only nice part about the Ewell residence. During the Tom Robinson trial, it is implied that not only Bob abuses Mayella, but also show signs of a “bond” that may be a bit too close, even for a father and daughter. After the so-called “rape”, Bob Ewell neglected to call a doctor, which leads you to infer that Tom Robinson did not hurt Mayella Ewell, but her father did. Mayella had a bruise on her right eye which implies that someone that is left handed had hit her. Atticus asked Bob Ewell to write his name to see which hand he wrote with and he used his left hand, which leads you to believe Mayella gets abused by her father. That is another reason to feel compassionate towards Mayella. Mayella had not been treated like a lady before, up until