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Ways harper lee used gender roles in to kill a mockingbird
How harper lee showed gender bias prejudice in to kill a mockingbird
How harper lee showed gender bias prejudice in to kill a mockingbird
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Mayella Ewell is a poor white woman who lives in Maycomb County. Mayella’s house is a desolate Negro cabin behind the town’s trash dump. Her fence is made up of tree branches and broken tools. Despite all this, Mayella Ewell does have power. “Yes, suh.
In this case, Mayella happens to use it to her own advantage while in court. By using her young feminine features, she is able to manipulate others such as the Judge to feel sorry for her. Rather than the judge being manipulated, Tom Robinson takes his place and takes pity on her. Not only does gender have it’s advantages, it also has its disadvantages. This includes Mayella’s set back in her home environment.
In court, they said “ Now don’t you be so confident, Mr.Jem, I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…”. This quote is saying because she is a white person that means that she will always win in court or get her way over a colored person. The people in the court say “that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes, men are not to be trusted…”. The quote is said, because that African Americans are liars that no one should trust or believe anything they say or do. Mayella most power is race because she is a white person and white people are the better people during this time.
To put it differently, Mayella Ewells had power but, she had power in many differents ways. Her most powerful was her race. Her race had helped her out a lot due to Tom being African American. But for gender Mayella has power but no power. Mayella Ewell's weakest part about her is her class.
Her gender further makes her powerless when Tom was explaining that Mr. Ewell said, “He says you goddamn whore, I’ll kill ya.” (Document B). Mr. Ewell would only refer to a woman like that because the word is mainly used against women. Mayella’s gender negatively impacts her power by causing her to be more vulnerable and regarded
During the Great Depression, most African-Americans didn’t have a voice when it came to many things. This is exactly the case with Mayella Ewell vs Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In a small town of Alabama, there was a trial, for a colored man who allegedly raped a 19-year-old girl named Mayella Ewell. Tom Robinson was appointed an attorney named Atticus Finch, who despite having not really met the man believed in Tom’s innocence and is determined to figure out a way to prove it. Even though there was strong evidence to prove that he was innocent the jury still believed he was guilty.
Is Mayella Ewell powerful or not? Mayella Ewell, the poorest girl in the town of Maycomb, Alabama, living on a pig farm with her abusive father and in an abandoned Negro shack. The Ewell’s are the lowest of the low in the town of Maycomb, in rank wise and are not respected too much either. Bob Ewell, father of Mayella Ewell is an abusive man, sexually and physically and has an alcoholic problem. Mayella is usually beaten and sexually assaulted by him, especially when he is drinking, but Mayella has a plan that will let her be free from Bob.
Although To Kill A Mockingbird was written in the 1960s, Harper Lee incorporated her views on women and created characters that depicted different views on femininity in the 1930s, like Alexandra who believed in society’s view of a woman, and Miss Maudie, who managed to find a balance between her true self and society’s ideas and images.
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the story is set in the 1900’s, Maycomb, Alabama. During this time there was racism in the south and segregation which separated the whites and blacks from everything. There was also the Great Depression, the whole country was poor and people living in the country had to trade and do other jobs for people to either pay them off or to buy something from them. The trial in this book is about Mayella and Bob Ewell, two white people, claiming and arguing that Tom Robinson, a black person, raped Mayella Ewell. This trial is really important because at that time in the south, white people took advantage of black people and their kindness and thought they would take that or shut up just because they were black.
They say everyone has a voice and should be heard but when an innocent African-American male is up against a young American female nobody listens to him anymore. In the novel To Kill A Mocking by Harper Lee, an African-American male is called to court for assaulting a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Atticus Finch is his lawyer and will need to do what he can for Tom as this case will not settle well with the Town of Maycomb. Mayella Ewell did not grow up rich as she was in a lower class than others. She has 7 siblings and a father who drinks all the time.
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, is set in the 1960’s, a time when men and women had specific and restrictive roles in society. Men were the ones to work and earn money for their families and women were expected to a caring and obedient homemakers. In many ways, those gender stereotypes are still very present today. The contrasting opinions of Atticus Finch and Aunt Alexandra provide the reader with the different views on how men and women should be raised, which in turn, affects the readers thoughts and opinions on the gender expectations and roles that are present in today’s society.
This behaviour is deemed as natural, and few people question the roles put in place, this is truly terrifying so we are lead to wonder if what we accept as normal is perhaps corrupt instead. Race is the dominant cause of inequality in To Kill A Mockingbird, thus Maycomb’s views on race heavily influence every aspect of life. Although racial inequality is clearly illustrated in the in the injustice, prejudice, discrimination and antagonism surrounding the Tom Robinson trial, it is also shown more subtly throughout the novel. In Chapter 25 Atticus Finch is quoted disclosing that the corrupt justice system is a direct cause of a racist society. “In our courts, when it 's a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (Lee, 295).
Rajan Dosanjh Mrs. Haber ENG 1D0A January 18, 2017 To Kill A Mockingbird Theme Essay Discrimination is a societal issue which has been prevalent for a long time and still brings people down in today’s society. Discrimination can be defined by the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex (www.dictionary.com) Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird is based in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb where a man named Atticus Finch is appointed to defend a man named Tom Robinson who was accused of raping a teenage girl.
First, she had to make up a story about Tom Robinson because she had kissed a black man, which was frowned upon for a white woman to do. “She was white and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society in unspeakable: she kissed a black man”(272). Mayella is also used as an example when she convinces the jury to convict an innocent black man because of Southern Womanhood. “That n***** took advantage of me, an’ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanna do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin’ cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you”(251).
In a trial the closing argument is the most critical addresses made in court. Generally an emotional plea, this closing argument can be the deciding factor to a court case. To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 film based on the award-winning novel written by Harper Lee. During an era of racial inequality, lawyer, Atticus Finch, contravenes the unwritten social code to defend a black man against an underserved rape charge. In a racially charged atmosphere, “white trash” Mayella Ewell ignores the morality and conventions of the community, and makes a sexual advance on Tom Robinson.
