Examples Of Mayella Ewell Alienated In To Kill A Mockingbird

Robert Smith once said “If you feel alienated from people around you, it's because no one tries to understand you.” Countless characters are terribly alienated from their own societies and their own communities. By using alienated characters (typically because of gender, race, class, creed or another characteristic) authors show values of a society. Mayella Ewell is alienated because of her family name, where she lives and how unsocial she is. The author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, shows how the town of Maycomb has the assumptions and moral values of a social hierarchy, strong prejudice and are very concerned about their ‘image’ by alienating Mayella Ewell.

Mayella Ewell is an alienated outsider in Maycomb because of her family

The Ewell’s live behind the town dump in an old run down cabin. The cabin used to be a negro cabin, negroes are at the bottom of the hierarchy. If the Ewells, who are white, live in an old negro cabin, their financial and social status must be around rock bottom. In addition the whole yard is cluttered with scraps of metal and garbage. There are items just thrown around the lawn such as a Model-T Ford, a discarded dentist’s chair, an ancient icebox, and useless items such as old shoes, worn-out table radios, picture frames, and fruit jars. The children survive by living off illegally killed animals and searching through the trash, “"The varmints had a lean time of it, for the Ewells gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry (those that were not eaten) made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child...." (Lee 228). Mayella Ewell demonstrates the prejudice in the town of Maycomb. The people of Maycomb don’t want anything to do with the Ewells because they are "white trash". The upper class people of Maycomb are prejudiced against the Ewells because they are beneath their social status. Even the black people of Maycomb, even though they are below the Ewells, will have nothing to do with the Ewells because they are

Mayella is the surrogate mother for the Ewell family, with Mrs. Ewell dead. Mayella has to take care of the children and her father. Mayella is all alone. Mayella can't go to school because she needs to take care of her siblings, especially when her father doesn't care about them and spends his welfare checks on alcohol. Mayella lives in the town dump, and already suffers the consequences from it, to spend time together children typically hang out at eachothers houses. Mayella cannot invite company to come to her house. Mayella wouldn’t have time for friends either, she is stuck with all the household responsibilities and is in charge of the children. Mayella is so antisocial that when Atticus Finch was being kind to her she thought he was sassing her. Atticus was just being polite and calling her Ma’am and Miss, and it angered Mayella. Mayella didn’t know that that was how women were talked to, which shows how little interactions she’s had with people. Then Mr. Finch asked her who her friends are, “The witness frowned as if puzzled. ‘Friends?’ ‘Yes, don’t you know anyone near your age, or older, or younger? Boys and girls? Just ordinary friends?’ Mayella’s hostility, which had subsided to grudging neutrality, flared again. ‘You makin‘ fun o’me again, Mr. Finch’ ” (Lee 245) Mayella is so antisocial that when Mr. Finch asked her if she had friends she took it as an insult. Atticus questions Mayella about her lack of