The Innocent Killer

The Innocent Killer Imagine a fragile, lonely woman who emerges as a brave, worthy adversary to Atticus. Mayella Ewell is an extremely polarizing figure in to To Kill A Mockingbird. She is the daughter of Bob Ewell, an unemployed man, who is widely looked down upon by his fellow peers. Unfortunately for Mayella, this distinguishes her from society and does not allow her to be educated or make acquaintances with the people of Maycomb. She is not capable of this because there are basic rules of society which inhibit her from socializing with the blacks nor the middle class white people. Since she is not able to socialize with most white people, she chooses to speak with Tom Robinson, a black man. Then a few months later, Bob Ewell accuses Tom

While white society considers the Ewells inferior, the Ewells hold themselves above the community’s African Americans. They are looked down upon by the whites because their family has never worked nor gone to school and are not considered productive members of society. Yet the Ewells attempt not to associate with the black people because, in the South in the 1930s, there was extreme racism against colored people. Living in immense poverty means she is not allowed to go to school and engage in friendships. This is clearly displayed when Atticus Finch asks if Mayella has any friends to a shockingly aggressive reaction. “Mayella’s hostility which had subsided to grudging neutrality flared again ‘You makin’ fun o’ me agin, Mr. Finch’”(245). She believes that Atticus had been making fun of her because he treats her with great manners which she had never experienced before, since the she never socializes with the proper people of Maycomb. Yet, she not only lacks friends, she also has a shockingly distant relationship with her father. Mayella’s father care for her, rather he beats her and leaves her alone for days. This is displayed perfectly through, “Their relief check was far from enough to feed the family and there was strong suspicion that Papa drank it up anyway- he sometimes went off in the swamp for days and came home sick”(244). No wonder Mayella is lonely, her father leaves her alone to take care of the entire family and when he would return she would have to take care of Bob. Her lack of friendships and no parental figure leaves her devastated and lonely in an unforgiving