Examples Of Cruelty In To Kill A Mockingbird

Maycomb, a town that prides itself on southern hospitality and small town values, but it has a dark secret no one adresses. This is the fact that these "values" breed cruelty to those who live in poverty, born a different race, or practice an extreme religion. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee displays cruelty through three different characters, all with different lifestyles.

First, we are introduced to the Ewells. Bob Ewell, who is a notorious drunk, is bitter and outspoken. The Ewells are isolated from the rest of Maycomb and uneducated, which Scout experiences on the first day of school when a kid walks right out of her classroom unprovoked. During the trial we find out that Bob Ewell was a child predator towards Mayella, and Maycomb chooses to sweep it under the rug. The Ewell children experience lots of cruelty from their home such as no food, isolation, and overall neglet, but they experience extreme cruety from the town because of social class and poverty. …show more content…
It is heartbreaking to watch him become a victim because he is a foil of Bob Ewell. Tom is a hardworking man, who goes to church, and is very empathetic to a white woman, who is in need of obvious help. For that, he ends up dead. Tom faces cruelty in many ways. The most obvious is when everyone in the town knows Tom isn't guilty, but he still pays the ultimate price with his life because of the color of his