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How Does Mayella Get Power In To Kill A Mockingbird

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When you read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, you meet Mayella, a white woman that lives with her dad and her siblings who gains power throughout the story. Mayella gets this power using her race, gender, and class in the society in the story. Mayella uses her power from being poor and by everyone feeling sorry for her and making people help her out. Mayella is white so she has power over the black people in the story, Mayella is a woman so she gets respect from the people in the society. Now you know more about Mayella and her lifestyle more, is Mayella powerful? Mayella's Race is the most important when it comes to power. In the story, To Kill a Mockingbird, little over halfway in the book you read about the trial of Tom Robinson, an innocent man who supposedly raped Mayella Ewell. Tom Robinson is black and can't use his left arm, and all of Mayella's bruises were on her right …show more content…

Mayella is a woman so she gets respect from people and . Mayella was also powerful by having everyone trust her over a black male who was innocent, but Mayella won the case because she is a woman and she is trusted over Tom Robinson. In document

Mayella uses her class as a way of being powerful and using it in the trial scene of Tom Robinson. Mayella lives in a “fix”, she is poor and she uses that as an advantage to make people feel sorry for her. In document E when Tom says “I felt right sorry for her suh” he felt how Mayella was treated and wanted to help her. Mayella knew that it was a law for Tom to be near a white woman, so Mayella was smart and made Tom feel sorry for her that he helps her out. Mayella was smart by using her class because Tom, a black male cannot be with a white woman it was a law at the time.
(TKAM:Is Mayella Powerful: Throughout the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Mayella gains power using race, gender and class to win the case against Tom

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401 Words | 2 Pages

I think Mayella is mostly powerful because of her race and here is how. There was quote on page nineteen of the DBQ that 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 here showed us that not one single colored man ever beat a case against another man. And since Miss Mayella is a female, Tom is definitely going to have a hard time winning against her. There was another quote on page twenty-one that said, “...

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397 Words | 2 Pages

Because she is poor, people think she can not take care of herself or other things, but she can and tries, therefore proving that she has power. One might think that Mayella take care of the children of the house as well, not just herself and the

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492 Words | 2 Pages

One day in Maycomb, Alabama during the great depression a young girl named Mayella Ewell was raped. This shows Mayella is one powerful young girl in the story To Kill A Mockingbird. It will show how she is power through class, race, and gender. First Mayella is powerful through her class ranking. In the story it said that the “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin…”.

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638 Words | 3 Pages

“(DBQ Is Mayella Powerful? 19)”    As the evidence shows Mayella Ewell is powerful  due to her class, race, and gender, primarily due to her race. Mayella is an energetic and vigorous character in Harper Lee’s, To Kill A

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777 Words | 4 Pages

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

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773 Words | 4 Pages

One would say she is not powerful because she is enclosed from the world, beaten by her father, and not very respected. For example, as Atticus asked Mayella to see if her father is good and tolerable to her, but she says “He does tollable, ‘cept when-”, ‘Except when he’s drinking?’ asked Atticus so gently that Mayella nodded. ”(Lee, Chapter 18) This would prove that Mayella has less power than usual when her father is drunk because, his gender as a male has the power over her and gets violent when drunk.

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348 Words | 2 Pages

Additionally to Mayella’s power in race, does she have power in class? Mayella lives behind a dump and her nearest neighbors are negroes. “Get back to your dump.” Said in Document A.

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423 Words | 2 Pages

Power isn’t something given it is something earned. Well did Mayella earn her power? Due to Mayella’s class and gender her power may be limited. How do Mayella’s class, gender, and race affect her power? Well maybe she’s powerless, and because of her advantages she earns a limited amount of respect giving her power.

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840 Words | 4 Pages

Truly i think Mayella does lack power because of class, after reading Doc A, i have a quote that might help you understand why she lacks power. “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind a garbage dump in what was one a black cabin it’s windows were nearly open spaces in the walls… what could

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591 Words | 3 Pages

Although Mayella claimed rape, it still does not change the town’s point of view on her. “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin…. (Doc. A)” this explains and tells us that the Ewells are not rich nor do they have an abundant amount of money; since they do not have riches, that are not considered high-class nor middle-class, which mostly likely leads to the Ewells receiving little to no respect or value to the town. “White people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs (Doc. E)” this statement proves that, although she is a white woman, no one would get involved in her business or life because of her background and her “atmosphere”. “Long’s he keeps callin’ me ma’am and sayin’ Miss Mayella.

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885 Words | 4 Pages

Then some people thought that Tom was innocent but the judge decided to make Tom go to prison. In the book it said that Mayella hugged and kissed Tom on the cheek. From this I can infer that Mayella is desperate and can get away with this because Tom Robinson is a black person. This reminds me of a couple southern movies I’ve watched where black people are always the first to suspect because of their color. Tom Robinson on trial for his life said Bob Ewell yelled “whore I’ll kill you” when he saw Mayella kiss Tom from the window.

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709 Words | 3 Pages

Mayella was was just a poor girl who had never been to school a day in her life and suffered so much abuse from her father, she didn’t give herself the opportunity to be powerful. In a time of oppression and depression Mayella standing up would have been a monumental change but she never seized it and took advantage, she let everyone else take advantage of

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1046 Words | 5 Pages

In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee took the minor character of Mayella Ewell and made her into a sympathetic role to her readers in a latent way. Mayella's life at home is told through the story's background and foreshadowing references. This is how Lee made Mayella memorable enough to the reader to know who she is and her family situation without needing her point of view of her side of the story. Once Mayella enters the storyline, her actions will become understandable to the reader and generate sympathy. One way Lee makes Mayella a sympathetic character is how before entering her into the story, one of Mayella's younger siblings was introduced.

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732 Words | 3 Pages

But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet.” Mayella’s loneliness and powerlessness drove her to have an affair with a black man, breaking a societal code. She is a victim of poverty because of the hatred and discrimination occurring in Maycomb. Although some might view Mayella Ewell as a victim, others might view her as a villain because she broke a societal code by attempting to have an affair with a Negro.

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730 Words | 3 Pages

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).

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