Unlike Mr. Pity must be reserved for Tom Robinson, whose honesty and goodness render him supremely moral. Unlike the Ewells, Tom is hardworking and honest and has enough compassion to make the fatal mistake of feeling sorry for Mayella Ewell. A number of critics have objected that the facts of the case are crafted to be—no pun intended—too black and white. The exaggerated demarcation between good and bad renders the trial more important for its symbolic portrayal of the destruction of an innocent by evil.
As clear as it is that Tom is innocent, it is equally clear that Tom is doomed to die. Link Deas represents the diametric opposite of prejudice. The judge expels Deas because his interjection during the proceedings threatens the integrity of the formal manner in which court proceedings are run; the grim irony, of course, is that the blatant prejudice of the trial does so as well, though the judge does nothing to alleviate this prejudice.
The reader is spared much of Mr. Dill is still a child, and he responds to wickedness with tears, much as the reader responds to Mr. The small sample of his cross-examination that Scout and the reader do hear is enough. Gilmer believes that Tom must be lying, must be violent, must lust after white women—simply because he is black.
Ace your assignments with our guide to To Kill a Mockingbird! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. By the end of the trial, he and his daughter are proven liars, he's been publicly identified as a sexually and physically abusive father who fails to provide for his family, and the entire town knows that Mayella made sexual overtures toward Tom.
Instead of improving his life, Ewell cements his family's horrible reputation once and for all. In this situation, Bob Ewell can do little but try to recover his own pride. He makes good on his threats to harm the people who embarrassed him in court. He rejoices in Tom's death. Bob Ewell is the kind of person who actually seems to enjoy being despicable. Next Character Map. Removing book from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title.
Are you sure you want to remove bookConfirmation and any corresponding bookmarks? Atticus then shows the jury that Tom is handicapped and his left arm is completely useless. The basic idea is that she says that Tom Robinson raped her by force. She says that she was hanging out on her porch when he walked by. When she went into the house to get the nickel, he grabbed her. Mayella Ewell, while she is a victim of a horrible crime, is not a credible witness.
In addition to the obvious nervousness displayed by Mayella when asked about the details of her crime she showed similar amounts of anxiety when asked about her father. Atticus pleads with Mayella to admit that there was no rape, that her father beat her. She shouts at him and yells that the courtroom would have to be a bunch of cowards not to convict Tom Robinson; she then bursts into tears, refusing to answer any more questions.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Mayella testifies that Tom Robinson attacked her on the porch and sexually assaulted her after she had asked for his help break down a chiffarobe. She claims to have woken up to her father standing over her. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Mayella's a Ewell, and everyone knows what the Ewells are like: ugly, shiftless, and trashy—they even live by a dump.
But when she takes the stand, she represents something else entirely: a flower of "Southern womanhood," an idea that itself is, according to Atticus, a "polite fiction" But to justify sending an innocent man to death, the jury has to believe in her as a representative of "fragile" white women everyone:. A young girl walked to the witness stand. As she raised her hand and swore that the evidence she gave would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help her God, she seemed somehow fragile-looking, but when she sat facing us in the witness chair she became what she was, a thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor.
In order to convict Tom , the jury has to believe in, or at least pretend to believe in, the fragile, helpless girl who gets taken advantage of by Tom, rather than see her as a desperate, lonely teenager who actively desires him. It's not just ideals of women at stake, but also of men:. Your fancy airs don't come to nothin'—your ma'amin' and Miss Mayellerin' don't come to nothin', Mr.
Finch-" Then she burst into real tears. Mayella's comment suggests that for men to be big brave heroes, they have to believe that women are helpless timid victims in need of protection or avenging.
When Mayella accuses a black man, she's able to access the privileges of white Southern womanhood—namely, the chivalrous protection of men, no questions asked.
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