Mayella Ewell's Power In To Kill A Mockingbird

Mayella Ewell is a white women of a low class going up against a black man in a court case on rape. Have you ever thought about how this would turn out or who is more socially powerful? Mayella won the court case, but that still does not make her powerful. Mayella lives in a very poor and low family, she is also a white woman who is claiming to have been raped by a black man named Tom Robinson. She is powerful up against Tom regarding her race since he is black in a time and place where racism is strongly present. That is still not enough to give her power because, she is a women and not respected or treated well. She also comes from a low income family that is usually referred to as “trash”. Mayella does have power regarding her race, but

Her race is what will eventually allow her to win the case. However, even though she has power because of her race, she is still not socially powerful and is deemed as an outcast within her society. Maycomb county, the white part, do not deem the Ewells the same as them even though they are the same race, “an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber” (Document D). Even though the Ewells are white the rest of the county does not see them as the same “caliber” of the rest of the white people making their race unable to give them much social power. White people don’t want anything the do with their family because they are not as good of people as others, “white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs” (Document E). While she is white the white community doesn’t want anything to do with their family because they are considered “white trash” taking away a lot of her race power. To sum things up, Mayella won the court case because of her race. She overall does not have much power and even though she is white the rest of the white community doesn’t accept them. Her family, although white, is not given much power socially and in the