Tom Robinson Trial

Everyone in Maycomb knew that “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” (Lee 276). Mayella Ewell claims to be raped and beaten up by Tom Robinson after she asked him to help her in the house. During the testimony the truth that Robinson did not rape her emerges. Scout realizes during the testimony “that Mayella must have been the loneliest person in the world” (Lee 218) because first, her father beat her up and raped her. Second, she had no friends, so she was desperate for some affection, which she thought she could find in Tom Robinson, who sometimes helped her when she asked him to. “She tempted a negro” (Lee 231) when her father saw that, he wanted to kill her, and Tom Robinson ran for his life, which made him look guilty.

At the same time, the southern rape complex includes a “passive, white, heteronormative woman” (Halpern 11). Mayella Ewell might have been considered white trash, nevertheless, in this case “she necessarily symbolizes the pure and sacred white Southern womanhood” (Vestil). The irrational fear of the black rapist stereotype made the southern society keen to protect their white superiority. A white female, regardless of class and at any cost, would have been believed, in contrast, a black male would never be trusted but he would be convicted of a capital crime. The jury into Kill a Mockingbird does not believe Mayella, but because of race Tom Robinson will be sentenced to death. In this part, the intersectionality of race and gender developed by Critical Race theorist can be used. Critical Race Theorist argues that “race does not occur independently of the histories of