To Kill A Mockingbird Sympathy Analysis

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Everybody has two different sides to him or her- one that is publicly displayed and one that is buried in their personal life, completely hidden. People tend to perceive themselves as how they are seen by others, but can open up or be exposed when they are put in that position. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, both of Mayella Ewell’s sides are evident. Mayella is girl from a poor family with her father and many siblings. On the outside, she can be dismissed as a lying cheat because she fibbed on the witness stand. However, when she is forced to open up during her testimony, her true self can be seen. This is why some people think that she deserves sympathy from the audience. Though some sympathy could be shown towards Mayella because …show more content…
Tom Robinson’s testimony was clearly truthful; in it, it is said that Mayella came onto him and he tried to stop it from getting too far. Having discovered this, many people would lose sympathy towards Mayella. This is because Lee makes it very clear who is telling the truth who isn’t. For example, Mayella lied about the events of the testimony. Anybody, even Scout who was in the back of the courtroom, could tell Mayella was blatantly lying as shown in “She seemed to be trying to get something clear to herself”(Lee 256). Whenever she would say something, she would always change her answer or pause for a second to make sure what she was saying was matched up with what her father said. Sympathy shouldn’t be given to Mayella because she lied during her testimony. Her lie ultimately caused the death of an innocent black man, which is completely inexcusable. To do this, she worked so hard to get the kids out of the house. During the trial, it is uncovered that Mayella had spent a year’s worth of money to get the kids out of the house for the moment that Tom had supposedly instigated. Sympathy should not be given to a person whose ulterior motive was to woo a married man. The most unjustifiable fact is that she tried to cover up the incident, which resulted in Tom’s death. Anybody could tell that she was trying to pinpoint the blame onto Tom Robinson when she was the true culprit. Given this, it could be said that her actions resulted in murder on an innocent man and why she doesn’t deserve sympathy from
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