Isolation, Isolation And Loneliness In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Improved Essays
When discovering our own personal identities, there are a great number of things that can sway the way that identity ends up looking. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee explores how the influence of isolation, discrimination and loneliness can reflect upon our identities. Evidence of how these feelings impact our individual identities can clearly be seen in the lives of characters Tom Robinson, Mayella Ewell and Boo (Arthur) Radley.

Boo Radley is perhaps the most misunderstood character that Harper Lee crafted. Scout and Jem believe he is a monster who eats raw animals, a great giant of a man with yellow teeth and perpetually bloodstained hands. However throughout the novel we are reminded on multiple occasions that Boo is simply
…show more content…
The people that surround her abuse Mayella physically and mentally while treating her as nothing more than an extra hand. Scout even says this about Mayella in Chapter 19, “As Tom Robinson gave his testimony, it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years.” It was because of this loneliness that she reached out for Tom Robinson. Mayella saw something in Tom that she hadn’t ever seen in her dismal and secluded life; compassion. Her loneliness compelled her towards a man who was the recipient of fierce hatred from the citizens of Maycomb, which led her, probably under the guidance of her father, to provide a false testimony in Tom’s case. Had Mayella grown up in a world other than the one her father dictated for her, she might have not felt the need to accuse Tom for committing a false crime. Tom knows the truth of Mayella’s desperate position and we can see it when he says, "Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more 'n the rest of 'em-" in Chapter 19. Atticus knows it too when he presses again and again for Mayella to admit to the jury that her father would violently beat her. Mayella is a trapped and barred in a world that keeps her in crushing loneliness. Her solitary life causes a sense …show more content…
Tom is the town’s scapegoat, all of their wrongdoings get thrown at him based simply on the fact that he is a black man. We as the reader find that almost every person in the town is angled against Tom right from the start. This can be seen when Scout’s cousin Francis calls Atticus “... nothin’ but a n*gger-lover!” (chap. 9) for defending Tom on the trial. The way that a child can have so much hatred for one race is horribly reflective of the way the town treats Tom. Because of the loathing of Tom and his race face in Maycomb, he finds that he must always be vigilant and cautious when dealing with his white counterparts. Tom expresses his fear of misstepping in his testimony when he says, “... it weren’t safe for any n*gger to be in a -- fix like that.” Tom says this because he knows all too well of the racism which would immediately incriminate him in any place of law. He knows there is no chance of a black man getting an innocent ruling when the ‘victim’ is a white woman. Tom also knows that the chances of him getting out of jail are slim so he uses up the last of his courage and jumps the fence only to get shot moments later. Sadly, Tom’s identity shaped around the hatred of others; propelling him towards a life of extreme wariness and fear of his own neighbors. Currently people all over the world are having their identities formed upon a platform of systemic racism and discrimination which causes the same sort of hopelessness

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    (144). Even if Boo wanted to run away from the abuse and isolation, he would have no one else to go to, he was trapped. In the end of the novel, Boo had saved Jem and Scout from a near death situation with Mr. Ewell. Scout was trying to be his friend and put her childhood superstitions in the past, but even with praise from Atticus, Tate, and Scout, Boo still wanted to be alone. Scout recalled walking Boo home when he “shut the door behind him.…

    • 1322 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He was still holding my hand and he gave no sign of letting go” (page 372). Radley then asks Scout to to take him home, “in the voice of a child afraid of the dark.” (page 372), showing that he was shy to speak aloud and felt frightened to be in contact with people other than his family in such a long while. At the beginning of the book when no one truly knew him, Boo is described as a monster. By the near ending when Scout finally meets him, she compares him to a child afraid of the dark.…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Terry Edwards Trial

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages

    ”page number!!!! This quote happened after the court case. He yelled at Atticus and was mad about how he was defending a black. He also mentioned that he was guilty since he was already black. This supports my Essential Question because both the jury and Bob just assumed that Tom was guilty because of what he looked like, what he wore, and not by how he acted, or…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tom Robinson, a character in To Kill A Mockingbird, is incessantly looked down upon due to his skin color, a factor that he has no control over. The story depicts Tom being accused of a crime that he didn’t commit. All due to the community assuming that it’s typical for a negro man to undertake a felony, he’s forced to suffer through unwanted and undeserved hardships. Tom haplessly had the disadvantage of being a colored man. “‘In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins.’”…

    • 242 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One example of the troubles gender causes Mayella is shown when Tom says “Bob threatened to kill her”(Doc B). When Tom says “there is evidence to indicate Mayella was beaten savagely by someone who led with his left”(Doc B) shows the physical abuse Mayella’s gender causes her. The sexual abuse Mayella’s gender causes for her is shown when Mayella says “I never kissed a grown man before… what my papa does to me doesn’t count”(Doc B). Since she is a woman in her time period Mayella’s gender causes problems and makes her powerless.…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “True contentment comes with empathy” (Tom Finn). Without empathy, today’s society would be unduly cruel. Empathy relieves many from redundant judgement, and often provides a deeper understanding of one’s unique challenges. In Harper Lee’s, To KIll a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout that “You never really understand a man until you consider things from his point of view… —until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (39). Throughout Lee’s captivating novel, one observes Scout mature as a character as she attempts to follow her father’s advice to “walk in another’s shoes” and be more empathetic.…

    • 735 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Socrates once stated that “The secret to change is to focus all your energy, not in fighting the old, but on building a new.” As life goes on many changes occur every day, whether it is the smallest change in a person or a larger change in a community those changes affect many, allowing for them to either grow from those experiences or stay the same. Depending on the person many of these changes can ruin lives, while others change in order to face those problems. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Tom Robinson is accused of raping Mayella Ewell because of his race. The town of Maycomb soon engulfs themselves in the case, causing Scout and her family to deal aggressive behavior from the townsfolk.…

    • 1493 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Even in her own home Scout is spoon fed prejudice from her bratty cousin Francis. “Grandma says it’s bad enough he [Atticus] lets you all run wild, but now he’s turned out a nigger-lover we’ll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin [Sic]. He's ruinin’ the family that's what he's doing” (Lee 85). Francis’ views of blacks speak for a majority of people in Maycomb, including Mrs.Dubose, Aunt Alexandra, and more. Through it all, it didn't matter from the start that Tom was innocent of the crimes facing him; he was guilty all along in the eyes of the jury and Maycomb county for being a black…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tom Robinson Racism

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Maycomb County, the setting of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, has a deeply ingrained culture of racism over reason. Tom Robinson’s death was unjust, yet few mourned and the eventual death did not shock anyone. The reason for this tragedy is that Tom was too confident that people would show good morals when faced with a complicated decision. He made a series of poor choices that placed him in a difficult situation that even the best lawyer could not get him out of. Although Tom was framed, it was his own mistakes that enabled Bob Ewell to prosecute him in the first place.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book showing how people can grow together. We have Scout and Jem growing up together in an innocent childhood growing into adulthood. We have Tom Robinson, an African American man who, is going to court with Atticus Finch (scouts father) and is trying to defend Tom against the harming white community. Tom Robinson was accused of rape of a white female Mayella. The raping of a white woman by a black man is similar to The Scottsboro Trial in 1933, where 9 black men were falsely accused of raping two white women.…

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird In to Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus says to Scout “Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it” (119). Many people can elaborate from this quote, mockingbirds can be considered a sin to kill them. All mockingbirds do is sing their hearts out for us and that it’s a sin to kill them.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “When you face difficult times, know that challenges are not sent to destroy you. They are sent to promote, increase and strengthen you.” Every day, each individual faces both obstacles and conflicts in every aspect of life. How individuals deal with these events influences who they become and their identities. How others see people handle their obstacles and conflicts impacts their own identities and question their morals.…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel “To Kill a Mocking Bird” harper lee illustrates that social norms have a negative impact on innocent people. In the novel, scout discovers that evil is always around but the goods of the people can change that. Born into poverty, Mayella Ewell is an outsider in Maycomb. She had no friends and no one that loved her, she never felt the love from anyone, not even from her parents. During the trial, Mayella knew that she was going to win, even though she was at the bottom of society, she knew the advantage she had of being white.…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    To begin with, when Tom felt bad for Mayella the whole courtroom was shocked. To explain this in more detail, when Tom says, ““Yes suh, I felt right sorry for her”” (264), and then Scout thinks, “Below us nobody liked Tom Robinsons answer” (264). This means that although Tom Robinson might have more money, works harder, and is more respected in the black society, he’s still black, and that’s below any white person, and since the society thinks you can’t pity anyone higher than you, they got offended. In fact, when the court session was over, the jury and the audience knew Tom wasn’t guilty, but voted that he was. To prove this statement, during Atticus’ final statement he says, ““This case is as simple as black and white.””…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Mayella’s accusation of Tom raping her comes from her effort to cover her shame of liking a Negro. While saving her honor, she sins by killing a mockingbird in her town. She destroys the life of Tom, a person who is pure, and innocent, and has never harmed her. Atticus makes it clear that Tom “would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstances” (195), still the court fails to accept so. They are unwilling to accept that a black man felt pity for a white woman, as they let racial prejudice guide their judgement of pronouncing Tom as guilty.…

    • 1429 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics