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Gender roles to kill a mockingbird
Complex themes of racism in to kill a mockingbird
Gender roles to kill a mockingbird
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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…”.
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.
Power, isn’t it something we all want? This court case, we set in a rape crime that has supposedly been committed by a young black fellow named Tom Robinson. The victim of this crime is Mayella Ewell and she’s white and a young girl. In the 1930s racism was a big factor in this case. Now does Mayella have more power because of race?
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.
The 1930s was a very challenging time for america, it was the peak of the the Great Depression and the social oppression of women. The fictional novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is centered around the political issues america faced. The novel takes place in the fictional town of Maycomb Alabama where we look at the case of Tom Robinson against Mayella and Bob Ewell. The story goes that Tom Robinson went into the Ewell household and took advantage of Mayella and beat her. Although Mayella was actually the perpetrator, she won the case and Tom Robinson was sentenced to prison.
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.
Power can influence many changes in the world whether it’s money or politics. Power is what most people want. The book ”To Kill a mockingBird” is written by Harper Lee in Southern Alabama during segregation in the nineteen-thirties. The Ewells are poor whites who live beside a dump. Bob Ewell is Mayella’s father who beats and rapes her,but makes Mayella accuse Tom Robinson.
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.
Humans live in a world where moral values are very clearly set determining what is good and what is bad. We know what scares us and how racism should be treated. Nevertheless, this was not the case back in Alabama during the 1950s. In the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee narrates the lives of the people of Maycomb, Alabama, focusing on the story of Scout and Jem Finch, and the case of a said to be rape. In this emotion filled narrative, readers learn how life was back then not only in general, but for the separate social statuses that there was.
The testimonies reveal how deep-rooted the racism within Maycomb runs, as it is present even in court rulings and how casually present it is. The court is taking place, and the order of prosecutor’s witnesses who are: Mr. Heck Tate, the sheriff; Mr. Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father; and Mayella Ewell, the one who is accusing Tom Robinson of raping her. When it’s Mr. Ewell’s turn to speak, he does so with many racial slurs and slang embedded in his accusations. When relaying what he saw to the jury, he points at Tom and yells “―I seen that black n*gger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!” Mr. Ewell, who, although, has never been a part of a court case or viewed one, doesn’t truly care, or notice, that so far into the formal case, not one person has used racial slang to talk about Tom, and uses the term n*gger quite casually.
In the novel: To Kill A Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell, a poor white woman, accused Tom Robinson, an African American, of rape. The Ewell’s are very indigent and her father, Bob Ewell, gets drunk and abuses Mayella. Since Mayella is very poor, this makes her not so powerful. In Maycomb, Alabama, A poor white woman named Mayella Ewell who lives behind the town garbage dump, accuses Tom Robinson, an African American, of rape.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee teaches us about the town of Maycomb County during the late 1930s, where the characters live in isolation and victimization. Through the perspective of a young Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, readers will witness the prejudice that Maycomb produces during times where people face judgement through age, gender, skin colour, and class, their whole lives. Different types of prejudice are present throughout the story and each contribute to how events play out in the small town of Maycomb. Consequently, socially disabling the people who fall victim from living their life comfortably in peace. Boo Radley and his isolation from Maycomb County, the racial aspects of Tom Robinson, and the decision Atticus Finch makes as a lawyer, to defend a black man has all made them fall in the hands of Maycomb’s prejudice ways.
In Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”, the issue of Southern Womanhood is brought up many times throughout the novel. Lee uses many different characters to help show how she viewed Southern Womanhood. Specifically she uses, Scout, Mayella Ewell, and Scout’s Aunt Alexandra. In "To Kill A Mockingbird", Harper Lee uses specific characters to show how negative of an impact Southern Womanhood used to have. Harper Lee uses Scout in many cases to show how she thought Southern Womanhood used to have a negative impact.
No matter the colour of the defendant’s skin, a white woman should not hold him accountable for an undeserved charge as a result of guilt and shame. Atticus appeals for racial equality, by accentuating that Mayella Ewell is guilty of a compassionate moment with a black man, and that it is not an excuse for a rape charge. This closing argument has been recognised as one of the 20th centuries most impressive messages in emphasising racial justice and a move for an integrated
THOMAS HOBBES AND THE SOVEREIGN’S POWER In this essay, focusing on Thomas Hobbes’s book ‘’Leviathan’’, mainly on the chapters 13 and 14, I’m going to analyse the fact that Hobbes gives the sovereign an absolute power authorizing it to provide the society with security essential to their liberty. Thomas Hobbes is certainly one of the most controversial and frequently contested political philosophers of modern times; he left a significant mark on modern understanding of human nature, political theories and the issues of systems of governance. His work has been at the centre of many discussions among political philosophers; I will refer to some of the twentieth century political theorists and their critiques to confront Hobbes view of the absolute
