How Does Mayella Ewell Use Gender In To Kill A Mockingbird

Power is something that can be given right at birth, or it could be something that is worked for throughout life. Race, class, and gender all affect how powerful someone is. Why was it that in the early 1900’s if someone was black, a female, and were poor there was no way for them to gain power no matter what they did? If a person was white, a male and sometimes a female, and had tons of money; there was no rush in how much time there was for them to gain power. Back in the day when the book “ To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee was written people were known by other people by their race, gender, and class that they are. In the book, Mayella was white, which gave her a little power, but the reason she did not have much power was because she

Mayella Ewell and her family live on welfare and hunting. They do not have their own money to spend when they want to. There was a whole different perspective on the way that Mayella’s house looked like: “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. . . . Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls . . . What passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts . . . Enclosed by this barricade was a dirty yard . . .” (Document A). Mayella never got to see the goodness behind living in a nice environment. Where she grew up was not a typical white family house. Everyone that the Ewell’s know, knows that they live in what is called the “dump”. It is a trash old run down spot where their house is. The life that Mayella was living was not healthy at all. She was poor and had no one to be friends with her: “Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world” (Document E). Mayella was not social due to the fact that she was poor and of course no one wanted to hang out with poor people. Mayella was not social due to the fact that she was poor and of course no one wanted to hang out with poor people. She was not used to people being kind to her so she never thought that it could actually happen. With the poor environment that Mayella lives in, allows her have no one to talk to. No one was a fan of her and would rather not be around her. She was always on the opposing side as everyone, even when she tried to show respect for the