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Powerless In To Kill A Mockingbird

705 Words3 Pages

Is Mayella Powerful? Be honest, have you ever felt like you’re better than everyone else? How much do you desire power? What is power? Someone who’s controls everything and everyone or someone who’s poor who wants the power for themselves? In my perspective, everyone wants power. People who’s lost and has no power wants to get it, and people with a lot of power wants to keep it for themselves. Power, or having control over someone or other people’s lives, plays an extraordinary role in Harper Lee’s book called “To Kill a Mockingbird”. This novel takes place in a fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. The climax of this story is a rape trial that involves a Negro, Tom Robinson, and a white woman, Mayella Ewell. In the court’s eyes’ her power is clear, but is she that powerful? Because of her vulnerability as a woman and a very low-class status, she’s powerless, but her privilege as a white person in a racist society is very powerful. Mayella is powerless because of her gender. In the trial, it’s revealed that Mayella is physically, verbally, and sexually abused by her father. Because Mayella can often be intimidated by her father, as a result of her gender, she wasn’t able to stand up to him, and his abusive characteristics towards her. During that trial, Mr. Ewell intimidates Mayella by leaning forwards in his chair when she tries to tell the truth about how her father treats her (Doc B). It’s very clear that he wouldn’t be able to physically

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