To Kill A Mockingbird Testimonies Analysis

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.

After the prosecutor’s witnesses have spoken and testified, the defense attorney, in the case, Atticus’s witness, Tom Robinson, goes up to the witness chair to testify. Atticus asks him a number of questions, and when Tom gets asked “Why were you scared?” his reply is “Mr. Finch, if you was a n*gger like me, you’d be scared, too.” Tom’s reason to be scared was simply that he’s black, which proves that the racism runs more than a layer thin, as a few words here or there would not make a person fear for their life simply because of the color of their skin. The racism threatens the lives of the blacks every day and every action that they make, for fear that they will be killed for stepping outside the line. If racism wasn’t present in Maycomb, the term n*gger wouldn’t be taken so lightly and the black community wouldn’t be scared to even seemingly step out of