Mayella Ewell went along with her father’s plan of framing an innocent man for rape, making her rather unlikeable from a modern perspective; however, there was a method to her madness. It was made evident in chapter eighteen that Mayella lacked friends and a social life; she was also forced to do all the housework and take care of the children. Scout even went as far as calling her “the loneliest person in the world” (Lee 316). Even through the eyes of a child, such a seemingly unlikeable woman suddenly becomes someone who just needs a friend. The man she was trying to indict was paradoxically attempting to show kindness to her. When Tom Robinson, a black man framed as a rapist, was on the stand, he said, “She reached up and kissed me...I say Miss Mayella let me outta here an’ tried to run but she got her back to the door an’ I’da had to push her. I didn’t wanta harm her...” (Lee 320). Mayella did indeed deserve compassion, as she was burdened with an abusive father and a family that didn’t treat her as they should have. This, coupled with a lack of a social life (which could be debated as further negligence since often times abusers keep their victims away from others for fear of being discovered) and a town that thought of her as trash, left the open-minded like Tom Robinson and Scout to show compassion towards her. Arthur “Boo” Radley had a notorious reputation in the town of Maycomb, but he too was deserving of compassion. Boo was known throughout town for attacking his father with scissors and for being quite a hermit. However, not all residents of Maycomb felt this way. In a conversation between Scout and Miss Maudie on the matter, the latter said, “I remember Arthur Radley when he was a boy. He always spoke nicely to me, no matter folks said he did” (Lee 74). From this typically gossipy woman, these kind words must be sincere. Additionally, the end of the novel marks a major appearance of Boo, who saves the Finch children from an attack by Bob Ewell. While Jem and Scout were walking home, Ewell snuck up behind them in ambush; yet, miraculously, Boo was there and managed to stab Bob to save the lives of the children. Atticus, typically a colder, more serious person, uncharacteristically thanked Boo, saying, “Thank you for my children, Arthur” (Lee 458). Even Heck Tate shows compassion to Boo, if not in a rather strange way. He decided that he wanted the town to think that Ewell had fallen on his knife because, “taking the one man who’s done you this town a great service an’ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight …show more content…
Mayella was, in her own right, a sort of mockingbird; causing further damage to a victim of savage beatings, negligence, and perhaps even molestation would be a sin. Boo may have been mentally unstable, but he wasn’t a bad person; he too was a mockingbird of his own right, being raised by a father that Calpurnia claimed was “the meanest man ever God blew breath into” (Lee 19). Whether they deserved it or not, all three of these characters received at least a little compassion throughout the novel. After all, even Atticus said, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee