Mayella Ewell Persuasion

Defendant and accuser. It’s black and white, isn’t it? At first glance, it may seem that the characters Mayella Ewell and Tom Robinson are just that, but as we learn with other characters in the novel, they are actually much more nuanced and complicated. With Mayella, we learn that she tries to make a better life for herself and Tom Robinson tries to escape the brutal system put against him. Because of their low status in society, powerlessness in their circumstances, and them being different versions of a mockingbird, we can see that although she is pictured as a villain in the book, Mayella Ewell is actually a white, mirrored image version of Tom Robinson.

Firstly, we can see that within the social hierarchy of Maycomb, both Tom Robinson

There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down in the dump, and the Negros.” (Harper Lee, 230)

It is pointed out that Negros make up a class of their own. Surprisingly, the Ewell family is also put in a class of their own because they are considered “white trash” in their community. About Mayella, it is said that,

“She was as sad, I thought as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was white.” (Lee,

A mockingbird, as described in the book is a bird that, “..don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy...That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (Lee, 96) The most evident mockingbird in the book is Tom Robinson as he is wrongly killed at the end of the book. Mayella is also a mockingbird, but not in the same way as Tom Robinson. According to Oxford Dictionary a mockingbird is “a long-tailed songbird with greyish plumage, found mainly in tropical America and noted for its mimicry of the calls and songs of other birds.” As mentioned previously, Mayella is not able to tell the truth because of her circumstances and as a result, mimics and repeats everything said by her dad. It is even said directly in this quote, “‘I positively did,’ Mayella echoed her father.” (Lee, 185) Even though Mayella had every opportunity to tell the truth, she refused to break free from the puppet strings of her father and becomes a kind of mockingbird like Tom