How Does Mayella Ewell Show Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird

Although Mayella Ewell eventually testifies against Tom Robinson on false grounds, her backstory and true nature is innocent, and her “mockingbird” only dies when her father corrupts her. First, when Scout is describing the Ewell’s living condition, the novel states, “Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson… People said they were Mayella Ewell’s” (Lee 228). Being raised in the conditions that she was, Mayella’s attempts at rectifying her family’s image, even in these small, personal acts, captures the way she wishes to live and how she thinks. Caring for the geraniums and trying to maintain some semblance of cleanliness, especially when compared to the rest of her family, gives the reader

Some may say that this is the final nail in the coffin for her status as a mockingbird, but this may just represent another facet of the definition of mockingbirds. Corruption of innocence is violence, in a way, and Mayella Ewell has been conditioned many a time, that she should do whatever her father tells her to, regardless of that action's moral ambiguity, and that if she doesn’t, she will have to face the consequences, often at the price of physical harm from her father. The loss of Mayella’s innocence through the corrupted lifestyle of her father, is often more telling of her mockingbird status than, say, her geraniums. Innocence, of a child or otherwise, is all the more precious when it is taken away, piece by piece, until the last scrap someone holds on to is more than anything ever was or will be, and these Mockingbirds, Mayella foremost among them, has had that last little bit of themselves torn away, leaving a wretched husk where there used to be a glimmer of