Mayella A Sympathetic Character Essay

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. Not only does this illustrates the Ewells financial crisis but as well as allude the behavior of the men within the Ewell household. Lee's introduction of Mayella's younger brother Burris was an introduction that was made to catch the reader's attention with Miss Caroline's outburst from seeing

Ewell's behavior is revealed to be hostile and rash. His English is informal and his behavior is rude. When Robert is proven to be lying about the story he begins to act like how his son Burris did to his teacher. It is also revealed that he was the one to give Mayella all the injuries Sheriff Taft witnessed after it was discovered that Mr. Robinson has no mobile use of his left arm. And if Mayella had a bruised right eye the person must be left handed and it is revealed that Mr. Ewell is left handed after Atticus tested him by asking him to write out his name on a piece of paper. However what Lee did by creating an attentive notion of how Mr. Ewell was the one to beat Mayella was the revealing of these facts but not actually stating he did it. Thus a tension is built up out of these annotations but Mr. Ewell will not get in trouble creates an anger in the reader. It also explains why Mayella lied on the stand, because she was scared what her father was gonna do to her if she