Mayella Ewell In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Growing up poor in a backwater town creates people who are victims of their circumstances, pitiful people who make awful decisions. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set in Maycomb County, a town much like the one described. The novel follows the lawyer Atticus Finch as he defends Tom Robinson, a black male, in a racially charged trial that shakes up the town. The plaintiff, Mayella Ewell is one of the most pitiful citizens in Maycomb, she is uneducated, lonely and self-preserving.
Not only is Mayella Ewell uneducated, she is also an ignorant young woman. Her limited education is attributed to the fact that she spent very little time in school. During her cross examination, Mr. Finch asks her “How long did you go to school?” …show more content…
Mayella's loneliness is due to the fact that she does not have anyone to count on. For instance, during the trial Mr. Finch asks her if she has any friends, she appears to be confused and even feels insulted by the question. (Lee, 245) Mayella is so lonely that she cannot even comprehend the concept friendship and she thinks that Mr. Finch is mocking her by asking this question. Additionally, being the eldest Ewell child, she has the role of being her siblings’ caretaker, not a friend or playmate. This creates a social divide between Mayella and her siblings thus, making her unable to connect with her siblings. Furthermore, she is essentially parentless, her father is frequently absent, usually drinking and her mother is dead. Mr. Finch asks her how long her mother has been deceased, to which she replies, “don't know-long time” (Lee, 244). No one is around to be a parent to Mayella, which further contributes to her loneliness. Without a mother, Mayella does not have a model on how to become a decent woman or even how to make friends. In conclusion, the causes of Mayella's loneliness can be attributed to a few things and a lack of a confidant is the main reason, with zero friends, or a close sibling and no responsible parental figure, she is not able to count on …show more content…
Mayella so desperately wants to save herself, she even lies while on the stand. During the trial, her statement is contradicted by Tom Robinson’s. When asked, Mayella insists her father never laid a hand on her but, Tom testifies “she said what her father does doesn’t count” (Lee, 260) in the context of having sexual relations. Mayella so wants to be believed that she is willing to be dishonest under oath. This implies that Mayella is willing to lie just to save her skin. Moreover, Mayella is attempting to get Tom tried for a crime he did not commit. Tom was the only person who was ever kind to Mayella and though she does not realize it, he is her only friend and at the first sign of trouble, she sacrifices him to avoid getting in trouble with her father. Her self-preservation tactics become more evident because she is trying to get Tom convicted. By claiming she was assaulted, Mayella is deflecting attention from the fact that she is attracted to a black man, and she is attempting to maintain her reputation in the town because she knows that interracial relationships are frowned upon in Maycomb County. Mr. Finch refers to this in his closing statement to the jury “she has committed no crime, she has broken a rigid time-honoured code of our society… she tempted a Negro” (Lee, 272). Mayella knew that what she was doing was wrong when she attacked Tom, but she deflects the blame from herself by claiming that he
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