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Atticus finch character essay
To kill a mockingbird atticus finch role in the book short summary
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The concept of a white woman being touched, let alone raped by an African American male was an assumption in the little town of Maycomb Alabama, 1930’s. During this period Mayella is considered helpless due to being a female as well as lonely and afraid considering her status as a poor white piece of trash. She manipulates people by using her social class, gender, and race to her advantage. In particular, her accusations made against Tom Robinson, an African American man. These factors lead to her gaining power with the trial and conviction of Tom Robinson. Race refers to the categorization of people based on physical differences.(“Is Mayella Powerful?” 7) Mayella Ewell had perquisites due to her race, which helped her during the conviction. …show more content…
During the 1930’s, there was this evil assumption that Atticus draws attention to which is that “....all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women…”( Harper Lee TKAM 273). With that in the minds of all the townspeople, Mayella being a “helpless” female amongst the lowest of the low gave her continuous power in the case against Tom Robinson. Moreover, being a female prompted the town to want to protect Mayella even more. The white to black ratio was unwavering in the 1930’s. Even though white people look down upon her, when it came time for Mayella’s case against Tom Robinson her class was disregarded and her race and gender trumped all. With this being said, even though Mayella was a low class female she inherited the superiority of being white making it easy for her during the trial. Mayella used her individualistic self pity against Tom Robinson. The little town of Maycomb Alabama knew the truth, but the Ewell’s plan backfired on them. They gained no respect, and are still considered white pieces of trash. As for Mayella individually, she’s not educated but she is very smart. Mayella did have power through race, class, and
Mayella Ewell is living in a racist southern community in the 1930’s. During this time no one was treated the same because of their skin color or if they were intelligent. Mayella has one thing that makes her powerful, her race. Laws back then was harsh. Between white and Negroes, both were wrong and mean to each other. Whites had
Let us put each other in the shoes of the jury, friends, and family observing in on a discrimination case. Jem and Scout the son and daughter of a lawyer named Atticus Finch get a taste of what the real world is like when, Tom Robinson a poor black man who is married and has kids is falsely accused of raping and assaulting a white woman named Mayella. Mayella Ewell is a young girl considered to be “white trash” who is all by herself to take on the role raising her little siblings while her father Bob Ewell, who is an alcoholic, abuses her. The question arises, is Mayella Ewell Powerful? Mayella Ewell is powerful in this discrimination case because of her race as white woman, her higher class than Tom Robinson, and her gender as a female.
One of the storylines in the novel is the Robinson-Ewell trial. Tom Robinson is an innocent African-American, accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a lower-class white girl. At the trial hearing, everyone is able to tell his or her side of the story before Tom is allowed to speak. All stories, however, offer two different versions of Tom and Mayella’s relationship. Moreover, Mayella and Bob Ewell tell the jury what they expect to hear, about Tom being a monster. They explain that there was no reason for his actions against Mayella. According to them, along with the rest of Maycomb, it's just expected that a black man would rape any white woman if he had the opportunity. The Tom spoken of by the Ewells shows the stereotypes that justify whites to be superior to blacks. However, Tom tells the jury about his innocence. He pr...
However, it is understandable that one can argue that Mayella’s two disadvantages trump her one advantage, socially, and make her a less powerful character in the story. Although it can be debated that women were looked at as a minority and class drives a person’s reputation (which can also lead to the amount of power one possesses), this topic’s evidence is irrelevant to the time that this story took place. Maycomb, Alabama was a very small town filled with conservative and stereotypical people who were stuck in their old ways and were very stubborn when it came to changing their ideas. Race was such a social hurdle that no one could overcome, due to it being a physical trait, during the 1930’s. Even if there was a poor, white woman, she would be automatically respected at a higher level than a wealthier black man. If one’s cultural group were to be ignored in this scenario, a wealthier man would have been at a higher advantage compared to a poor woman. However, race played a large role in this society, and during the court case, “(The Ewells had) presented themselves to you gentlemen (the all white jury), to this court… confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption- the evil assumption- that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women.”
In Maycomb, Alabama around the 1930’s, the race, class, and gender of people made a big impact on their life and determined their future. A girl named Mayella Ewell, from To Kill A Mockingbird, is a great example of this situation. Tom Robinson was an African American that was accused of raping Mayella. Her powers were based on her race, class, and gender. Her race was her strongest advantage towards her power. On the other hand, her gender and class were her least powers. She was a white, poor female that lived behind a trash dump. All of these characteristics played an important part in Mayella’s life and determined if she held powers or not.
No, I do not believe Mayella is powerful. I have decided this because although she is white, she is equally or even lower than the lowest- the African Americans. With this, she is also treated as one. When relating to gender, Mayella is physically weaker than the opposite sex. Even though she may be mentally stronger, she can not show it in this situation. Lastly, she is in the bottom class of her community. To me, Mayella is one of the weakest people in Maycomb. The only power she has is to use the people around her. Mayella used “the only person who was ever decent to her” in a way that helped her none and got Tom Robinson killed. I understand that this could be considered power, but it wasn’t enough for me to consider her powerful. There are many things that Mayela could have done to have helped her become powerful, or to even be seen as someone to Maycomb. Instead, she tried to do these things while being known as trash, In the end, this gets her nowhere other than putting and African American in jail for false accusation. Mayella is not
In harper Lee's, To Kill A Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell is powerful because of her class, race, and gender. Mayella is powerful because she is white women so that means that she has an advantage of some rights. During the Jim Crow Laws it restricted African American men to have an affair with white women. When Mayella went to court for Tom Robinson, Tom Robinson gets convicted of rape and goes to jail, but when Tom tries to escape prison he gets shot. When Mayella won her case against Tom Robinson, Mayella abusive father died. After Mayella won fer case against Tom Robinson, She went back to living in her family shack by the dumps.
In document A, Mayella’s class is very powerless. Mayella’s class is very powerless to her, because she lives next to a dumpster with a very broke down fence and yard. For example, In (Doc A), “Get back to your dump”, it states “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the towns garbage dump in what was once a negro cabin.” This is evidence that shows that Mayella as a white woman was powerless. Her money was low just like her house and her yard.
“Evil rarely comes in the form of monsters, but rather in the form of relatively normal people who, for reason of careers, ideology, or a desire for society’s approval, are indifferent to the human consequences of their actions.” As said in the quote people have a desire for society’s approval which makes sense because society does shape and influence people. It most definitely shaped Mayella Ewells in the book “To kill a mocking bird” for multiple reasons. Along with Mayella it always shaped and influenced non-fictional people like Victoria Price and Ruby Bates who are victims and accusers of the Scottsboro trials.
Atticus states the case has no merit and the choice is clear. Although she is “ victim of cruel poverty and ignorance” (Lee 231), Mayella is the one at fault. Mayella being uneducated, poor and desperate was a social periah, because she was trash to white people and white to back people. Atticus explains why she is quilty: “She was white and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable” (Lee 231). Mayella extremely loneness caused her to break the unwritten law that black and white shall never mix . Therefore, to cover up her mistake she accused an innocent man of a dreadful crime that would mean his life if found guilty. Atticus says all the evidence points to Tom’s version of the story and Mr. Ewell was the one
Due to her racial ethnicity, Mayella is held at a higher standing point than Tom Robinson to the court, as racial prejudice would play in Mayella’s favor over Tom’s. During the cross examination, Tom’s treatment was quite harsh as Mr. Glimmer consistently shames Tom by calling him boy as stated in the text, “Are you being impudent to me, boy?” (Lee Document C). It was common during those time to look down upon those colored such as Tom and pay respect towards people who were of white ethnicity. And although Mayella has her racial ethnicity backing her up in power, due to her low social class and gender, the power that comes from her racial ethnicity is insignificant as she takes Atticus words as sass as she complained to Judge Taylor that “Longs’s he keep calling me ma’am and sayin’ Miss Mayella. I don’t hafta take his sass, I ain’t called upon it” (Lee Document C). Due to her insufficient amount of education caused by her low social class, Mayella is unfamiliar with proper etiquette and impairs her only source of power. Overall, while Mayella holds how within her racial ethnicity, she does not hold enough power to truly be considered powerful due to her gender and low social
“You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” said by Atticus Finch. This quote explains how a person can be different in the inside than they are in the outside such as, a character named Mayella Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird was a book set during the 1930’s, written by Harper Lee that explained the struggles of segregation and racism. But was Mayella’s race the only aspect that made her powerful? Although Mayella can be seen as a powerful character due to her race, the areas she lacked in was her social class and gender. The concepts that will be explained will be why Mayella Ewell was not powerful because of her social class
Throughout her testimony Mayella is only credible because of her race. ”Maycomb`s Ewell`s lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a negro cabin…” (Document A chapter 17). Even though Mayella Ewell is impecunious and living in a poverty filled part of town where crime is bound to happen, she still manages to have the white people of Maycomb on her side because of the prejudicial views white people upheld. Mayella is clearly powerless when it comes to affluence, and her living arrangements with her abusive father, although she upholds power when it comes to proving her white womanhood. Mayella is the perfect example of the supremacy white women possessed in the 1930s because even though she was poor and physically weak she still manages to gain the trust of the Maycomb people. The court case would be exceptionally different if it were an African American against another African American, however because it is a white women against a black man the odds are in the white women’s
Mayella, the woman defending against Robinson, comes from a low income and low educated family, making them a poor family. Yet Mayella’s word is still favored against Tom because she still holds a higher social status than Tom just because she is white. In fact, in the novel, Atticus has an important quote regarding the court system that is still true today, “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins.” (Lee, H. (1960). To kill a mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott. pg. 251-252).
...a white man harming a black man, the black man would be guilty of assaulting the white man. Thusly, there was little to no chance that the jury would believe anything Tom Robinson said. Mayella used the town’s racism to her advantage to get out of her sticky situation.