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Similarities Between Scottsboro Trial And To Kill A Mockingbird

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In today’s world, many people live their lives by the way they are influenced by society. People nowadays are influenced by society in many ways. They are influenced by the way other people react to certain situations, any news they see in the media, or just the way they were raised by their families. With the victims of the Scottsboro trial and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird you can see how all these things plays an effect on the way Mayella, Ruby, and Victoria are shaped and you will see how the character, Mayella, relates to the non-fictional victims of the Scottsboro trial.

During the trial in both the fictional and non-fictional cases society plays a big role on shaping the people involved as victims. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, …show more content…

Also during the time period in which she grew up in, most of the people in her town were very prejudice towards colored people. With this setting of the life of Mayella, she shares many similarities with Victoria. She shares the similarity in that they both grew up in poor homes with an abusive other to live with. They both also grew up playing as somewhat of a mother figure or just a person that other people depended on. I think the life that Mayella was living made it easy to make her out as victim, but not as a victim of the trial, but as a victim of society. During the trials she would say the things that would keep her safe from any trouble and I think the is because of the societal influence that played a role with her reactions to certain situations. If she were to be raised in a different time period and in a much safer household, I think there would be no reason if for this trial to get as out of hand as it did because there would be a lot less of risk that she would have to take to go through the trial. Society basically has the same effect on Victoria as it did Mayella. Victoria also live in poor household and in a prejudice time period. Victoria in this case, was also only a victim to society and not to …show more content…

I think in this case, Victoria was looked much more as an accuser than Ruby was because of the way that she manipulated the people within the trial and pushed Ruby into the background of the whole situation. With this it shows how Victoria was just out to get the boys. All she wanted during the case was for them to be sentenced to death. So all she did was accuse them in a way to make them as terrible as possible. This differs in the way that Mayella was influenced to play as an accuser because of the ways they were somewhat forced to plays as accusers. Mayella and her situation she was just accusing Tom with the bad things that she said that he did just so she keep herself safe from the people in the town and her abusive father. Victoria was only doing it to seek revenge for what the boys did. I think the biggest way that society had an effect on these two was just because of how prejudice society was at this time. Again if this situation were to take place in a different time period then Victoria wouldn’t have the reason of being out to get the boys just because they are colored and Mayella wouldn’t need to accuse Tom of the things he did because she wouldn’t have to worry have to worry about being punished by either the town or her father

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Mayella and Ruby are both viewed as victims because they were supposedly raped by black men. Society makes Mayella a victim by isolating the Ewells and for viewing them differently than everyone else in Maycomb. Mayella deeply cares about what people care about her, so when people think of her as trash that really gets to her. She was lonely leading her to wanting attention from people. Ruby

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Racism and Vengeance Humans judge others on how they look, where they come from, or just plainly who they are; it is human nature. Everyone judges someone at some point in their lives, but how far are people willing to take their judgement. In the 1930’s, at a time when racism was at its peak, nine black boys got in a freight train fight with a couple white vagrants. The boys’ consequences were fatal.

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Mayella was hysterical and Victoria was comical. As Victoria told her side of the story during the trials, Victoria told the story of the trip to Chattanooga and back with gusto snaps and wise cracks, she had the court room in a roar of laughter (Ransdall). Whereas Mayella told her side of her story more emotionally, “Mayella stared at him and burst into tears she covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed” (Lee 240). This shows that instead of being like Victoria she chose to act as if she was devastated rather then get the jury on her side with laughter. A similarity is they both have elaborate fabricated stories.

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During segregation African Americans were treated poorly; the books To Kill a Mockingbird (TKM) and Mississippi Trial, 1955 (MT,1955) shows us this. In some places they were treated fair; the movie A Time To Kill (ATTK) shows us this. TKM and MT, 1955 were biased against African Americans, but ATTK was not. First of all, in the book TKM, African American Tom Robinson was sentenced to jail for a crime he did not commit.

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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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She doesn’t get a say in anything because to her nothing is wrong with what is happening to her. Mayella doesn’t know that she could speak her mind, it makes her powerless. In either case, Mayella Ewell had many chances to speak up for herself and tell the truth. Which possibly could have turned the entire case around she chose to stay quiet and comply with what everyone was telling her.

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An innocent black man, a selfless lawyer, and a misunderstood recluse all face the overwhelming prejudice and stereotypes of Maycomb County, which affects the way in which they live. Each man plays a pivotal role in the society of Maycomb County, and although they each live divergent lifestyles, they are all mockingbirds in their own unique way. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee compares Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley to mockingbirds to show that innocent men are victims of society’s prejudice.

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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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Because of her race, gender, and class, she is considered a powerful character in the novel In To Kill a Mockingbird, Mayella’s race gives her an incredible advantage, because society

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Ruby was a seventeen-year-old white girl that was a good girl who was easily manipulated due to her lack of knowledge of the real world she lived in a black neighborhood with her mother, three younger siblings, and a part time father. Mayella was demined an accuser when she accused a black man, Tom Robinson, from To Kill a Mockingbird of raping and beating her up in her house, which didn’t happen, it was actually her father who beat her up because she came on to the black man, Tom, and he didn’t like it so he beat her and chocked her then called over the sheriff and told him that his daughter had been raped and beat by a black man that she accused simply to get attention that she had never had before and to get revenge on tom for leaving her with her abusive father that she was to scared of to go

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In the successful novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, the character, Mayella Ewell, is portrayed as a victim and villain. She is a complex character who can be viewed as a lonely victim of poverty and neglect. She is also a 19 year old adult who falsely accused a man of a crime he didn’t commit. A victim is a person who feels powerless, needs lots of attention, and is passive. A villain is one who is trying to accomplish a mission, acting on personal desires, and is hiding something.

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When Mayella said she was raped, everybody including the jury had sympathy for her. This also allows her power for she is a woman. In conclusion, Mayella Ewell is significantly powerful in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. In the first place Tom Robinson wasn’t going to win given that Mayella had an advantage in Race, Class, plus Gender.

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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.

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Lies are not solutions; they’re like the gifts from Satan, which can cause more troublesome problems that will ruin people’s life and soul. The reasons that arose for Mayella choose to tell lies instead of confessing what she had she done to Tom Robinson are closely related to her own mentality. Additionally, her mentality can divide into three different parts: family, time period, and women’s status in the society. For the most part, her family background is the critical that causes her to give out falsehoods to the people.

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In the 1930’s, being a woman was considered a bad thing, no matter if you were rich or poor, black or white you were not really respected, in lieu of that fact Mayella takes many of her misfortunes and turns them into power. Although this may be true, it must be remembered that Mayella and her family are the poorest of the poor in Maycomb, they are even poorer than many of the black people in the town. Mayella

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