Imagine that your living in the 1930s, you’re a white woman, and you had just gotten “raped” by a black man or group of black men. This exact scenario happened in the critically acclaimed book To Kill a Mockingbird and in the real-life court case deemed the Scottsboro trial. Which in both the book and the court case, the characters, and people were shaped and influenced by society to become victims and accusers. This paper is going compare and contrast how the fictional character Mayella and the non-fictional plaintiff Victoria Price and Ruby Bates as painted victims and accusers by society. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the character Mayella Ewell is a victim of rape that never happened, which is similar to the Scottsboro trials of Victoria Price. …show more content…
In To Kill a Mockingbird Mayella Ewell is a victim of society, some examples of this are that her family is very poor, her father is a drunk who beat and raped her at least once, and she took over as the mother figure of the family when their mother died. All of these examples are somewhat familiar to what makes Victoria Price a victim of society as well, such as , she was beaten and raped by her husband, she was very poor, and she had to take care of her mother when she had gotten injured, and she was a prostitute who had a reputation of breaking up marriages. And there is another thing that made both of these people victims of society and it is that the townspeople and the law turned a blind eye to them because they were trying to do what they had to in order to survive. Even though Mayella and Victoria are victims, so is Ruby Bates …show more content…
In To Kill a Mockingbird Mayella is shaped by society to be an accuser during Tom Robinson’s trial because she had accused him of rape only because she was caught having a friendship with him which was unacceptable because he was black, and what made it worse for Mayella was that Tom Robinson declined that friendship because he didn’t want to be killed, which is why she accused him of rape. While in the Scottsboro trials, Ruby Bates was shaped by society to be an accuser because she during the trial she just went along with whatever Victoria Price was saying because she didn’t want to ruin her reputation any more than it already had been, even though at the end of the trial she testified that the Scottsboro boys didn’t do anything and that everything that supposedly happened was all a lie. Even though Mayella and Ruby are accusers, so is Victoria Price because during the Scottsboro trial she was the one who was making all of the accusations during the trial. But unlike Mayella making accusations because of being rejected and Ruby Bates just going along with what Victoria said, Victoria made accusations for fame and attention because she thought what she was doing was
The fear of her father and her nervousness clouded her judgement and, seemingly, she desired the jury’s pity. Mayella addressed Atticus, saying, “Won’t answer a word you say long as you keep on mockin’ me.” At Atticus’ puzzled expression, “Mayella looked from under lowered eyelids at Atticus, but she said to the judge: “Long’s he keeps on callin’ me ma’am and sayin’ Miss Mayella. I don’t hafta take his sass, I ain’t called upon to take it” (207). Bob Ewell’s oldest daughter knew exactly what had happened between herself and Tom Robinson, and essentially, she was completely aware that Atticus might be able to wheedle the truth from her.
Mayella vs. Victoria: To Kill A Mockingbird vs. Scottsboro Trial “He couldn’t get us to the chair fast enough.” Haywood Patterson a young black boy accused of raping two young girls named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates said this during his trial. Patterson said this about the judge of the case he was involved in. This was in the Scottsboro trial where a group of black boys was accused of raping the two young girls Victoria and Ruby. This same topic is brought up in the book To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee when a young lady named Mayella Ewell accuses a black man named Tom Robinson of raping her.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, the character Mayella Ewell is the subject of abuse, although we never see the abuse from her point of view we can use the information that was revealed in Tom Robinson’s trial to come to the conclusion that she was physically, mentally and perhaps sexually abused, as well as suffering from severe neglect.
Everyone wants to believe that they have the power to change the world, but how many of those people are willing enough to change themselves for the betterment of those around them in their communities? Too many times have men and women stood by and watched their neighbors fall to the vicious clutches of leaders with agendas, as much today as in 1692. The Salem Witch Trials can, in many ways, be compared to the Scottsboro Boys’ trials of the early 1930’s in that both scenarios relied on the false accusations and execution of innocents, simply by consequence of immoral and deceitful people. The Salem Witch trials was a period of hysteria fueled by tensions created by mistrust and resentment between neighbors, as well as recent events such
Mayella Ewell was a poor white girl who lived in a junkyard with her father and siblings, who told a lie that ended up killing an innocent black man. She accused Tom Robinson of rape. Since Tom was a black man the people of Maycomb saw Mayella a young white girl as the victim. Mayella’s gender, race, and class made her powerful in this situation. Harper Lee the author of To Kill A Mockingbird wrote about a young girl who accused a black man of rape.
One day in Maycomb, Alabama during the great depression a young girl named Mayella Ewell was raped. This shows Mayella is one powerful young girl in the story To Kill A Mockingbird. It will show how she is power through class, race, and gender. First Mayella is powerful through her class ranking. In the story it said that the “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin…”.
In today’s world, many people live their lives by the way they are influenced by society. People nowadays are influenced by society in many ways. They are influenced by the way other people react to certain situations, any news they see in the media, or just the way they were raised by their families. With the victims of the Scottsboro trial and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird you can see how all these things plays an effect on the way Mayella, Ruby, and Victoria are shaped and you will see how the character, Mayella, relates to the non-fictional victims of the Scottsboro trial. During the trial in both the fictional and non-fictional cases society plays a big role on shaping the people involved as victims.
This novel came out just as people were fighting over school desegregation, and civil rights movements that sought to restore basic civil rights for African Americans. It was a time of group action in the United States during which African Americans and the NAACP’s objective was to fight racism, discrimination and racial segregation that denied them their fundamental and basic rights. Lee was inspired by a catalysing event that occurred in her hometown in the 1930s when she was only ten years old. The trial is famously known as the Scottsboro Boys Case, where nine young black boys were wrongfully convicted of a heinous crime. They were charged with raping two white girls on a train and were sentenced to the death penalty.
In the book To Kill A Mockingbird and Of Mice And Men, almost most of the characters lie about something. People lie even if they’re innocent because they want to protect themselves from being an outcast. Calpurnia lies about being able to read, Dolphus Raymond lies about being an alcoholic, and even worse, Mayella lies about Tom Robinson raping her. All of these false accusations lead to consequences and the only reason these people did this is because they’re too worried about their social standing in their community and they don’t want to be looked at any differently than anybody else.
In the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, has many themes but none more evident than the losses and suffering of innocent people. For example, Mayella Ewell expiriences this theme as she is forced by her father to go along with the false accusation of rape comitted by Tom Robinson. As stated by Atticus Finch it wasn’t Tom but Mayella who committed this, "She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man.” (271).
Have you ever been accused of doing something even though you did not do it? Well that is what happened to Tom Robertson in the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. Tom Robertson was accused of raping a girl by the name of Mayella Ewell. They go to court about it then it get interesting. When Mayella Ewell stars to give her testimony about what happened the facts did not add up.
In the novel: To Kill A Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell, a poor white woman, accused Tom Robinson, an African American, of rape. The Ewell’s are very indigent and her father, Bob Ewell, gets drunk and abuses Mayella. Since Mayella is very poor, this makes her not so powerful. In Maycomb, Alabama, A poor white woman named Mayella Ewell who lives behind the town garbage dump, accuses Tom Robinson, an African American, of rape.
Tom, and African American living in Maycomb county, is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a poor, white female. When Tom is accused of beating and raping Mayella, many people around the town think that he’s automatically guilty. Atticus, Tom’s defending attorney, agrees to take on the case to help Tom because
But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet.” Mayella’s loneliness and powerlessness drove her to have an affair with a black man, breaking a societal code. She is a victim of poverty because of the hatred and discrimination occurring in Maycomb. Although some might view Mayella Ewell as a victim, others might view her as a villain because she broke a societal code by attempting to have an affair with a Negro.
Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird is about a man named Atticus and his two kids Jem and Scout. Atticus was appointed to defend an African American, named Tom Robinson. Tom was accused by Bob Ewell for raping and beating his daughter, Mayellea Ewell. During the trial scene, everyone in that courtroom finds outs the truth that Tom is innocent against the accusations from Bob. The truth is that Mayella kissed Tom and Bob saw what she did.