Mayella Ewell To Kill A Mockingbird

Individuals who have difficulty managing the emotions produced by traumatic experiences in their past utilize unhealthy coping mechanisms that might cause them to become even more traumatized. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell, an impoverished young woman, has suffered and endured her father's abuse throughout her life. She resorts to different people to provide her with the affection or kindness she requires because she does not receive it from her family. She starts to open her heart to Tom Robinson, a black man who has been kind and helpful to her, but he dismisses her actions because of his racial status in the town. As a consequence of the Ewells abominable attitude and their impoverished life, their reputation deteriorated

If she does not lie, her father will punish her even more, and this anxiety is what compels her to lie. Given that Mayella grew up in a low-income family, she has always been frowned upon; Nevertheless, the community members do not understand that her father has repeatedly exploited and abused her. In light of this, she has grown to fear him, and when she and Tom find themselves in a life-threatening situation, Mayella chooses to try and protect herself by having to put Tom in mortal danger. She lies about the accused Tom because of the constant shadow that looms over her and her future. She said Tom raped and abused her to protect herself. After the supposed crime, Mr. Ewell and Sheriff Tate, the sheriff, said that Mayella had many bruises on the right side of her body, indicating the person hurting her must have been left-handed. Atticus, Tom's lawyer, later revealed that Tom's “left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side” (Lee 211). Due to his left arm's impairment, he could not have possibly hit Mayella and left her with all those bruises and wounds, which indicated that another person had abused her. If Tom was not the one who had maltreated her, who would be able to, Mr. Ewell, who had been embarrassed and ashamed of his daughter's behavior, had assaulted her and assigned blame to Tom. If Mayella had told the truth about what happened, she would have received a much more severe beating at home and possibly even death or exile at the hands of her father. The different times Mayella has been abused, sexually and physically, have caused her to want to rid of the painful emotions and acts her father pushes upon her. Due to the circumstances that Mayella has lived through, she has always been “wishing there to be relief from that suffering” (Jazaieri).