Societal Judgement in To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird features a diverse group of characters. They differ in age, status, race, gender, and lifestyle. These differences define each individual character. The impact is, in some cases, positive. For example, Atticus shows the utmost respect to everyone so he is respected in return, a characteristic people like the Ewell family do not possess. However, being different is not always advantageous to the citizens of Maycomb county. Harper Lee uses characters’ differences from the majority and the towns folks’ opinion about them to depict the ease with which people are able to demonize that which is unknown to them. People tend to fear what they do not understand. In particular, …show more content…
Atticus receives flack from the citizens for simply defending Tom when he’s put on trial for the rape and assault of Mayella Ewell. Tom and Mayella have extremely different stories, Mayella’s including Tom beating and taking advantage of her, while Tom’s paints a picture of Mayella kissing him by force and her father beating her as punishment. The town assumes Tom is guilty simply because he’s black. In his trial, a hole in Tom’s case was that he ran following the supposed assault. He claimed to have done so because he was scared. When asked why, he informed the jury, “‘Mr. Finch, if you was a n***** like me you’d be scared too.’” (195). Tom had accepted that the jury would almost certainly find him guilty in spite of how sturdy he or Atticus was in his defence because he is black. His fate was sealed when the judge asked him why he was often willing to do odd jobs for Mayella without payment. He told the judge that she didn’t seem to have a lot of help at home, that he felt sorry for her. “‘You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?’ Mr. Gilmer seemed ready to rise to the ceiling.” (197). His apathy was mistaken for pity, leading the jury to believe that Tom thought himself, a black man, above Mayella, a white woman. As a final plea for the jury’s sympathy, Atticus addressed them.“‘The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption-the evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.’” (204) In spite of Tom and Atticus’ best efforts, the jury’s decision to convict Tom was
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird features a diverse group of characters. They differ in age, status, race, gender, and lifestyle. These differences define each individual character. The impact is, in some cases, positive. For example, Atticus shows the utmost respect to everyone so he is respected in return, a characteristic people like the Ewell family do not possess. However, being different is not always advantageous to the citizens of Maycomb county. Harper Lee uses characters’ differences from the majority and the towns folks’ opinion about them to depict the ease with which people are able to demonize that which is unknown to them. People tend to fear what they do not understand. In particular, …show more content…
Atticus receives flack from the citizens for simply defending Tom when he’s put on trial for the rape and assault of Mayella Ewell. Tom and Mayella have extremely different stories, Mayella’s including Tom beating and taking advantage of her, while Tom’s paints a picture of Mayella kissing him by force and her father beating her as punishment. The town assumes Tom is guilty simply because he’s black. In his trial, a hole in Tom’s case was that he ran following the supposed assault. He claimed to have done so because he was scared. When asked why, he informed the jury, “‘Mr. Finch, if you was a n***** like me you’d be scared too.’” (195). Tom had accepted that the jury would almost certainly find him guilty in spite of how sturdy he or Atticus was in his defence because he is black. His fate was sealed when the judge asked him why he was often willing to do odd jobs for Mayella without payment. He told the judge that she didn’t seem to have a lot of help at home, that he felt sorry for her. “‘You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?’ Mr. Gilmer seemed ready to rise to the ceiling.” (197). His apathy was mistaken for pity, leading the jury to believe that Tom thought himself, a black man, above Mayella, a white woman. As a final plea for the jury’s sympathy, Atticus addressed them.“‘The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption-the evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.’” (204) In spite of Tom and Atticus’ best efforts, the jury’s decision to convict Tom was