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Published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is seen as a book embedded into the American public school education system with good reasons. To Kill a Mockingbird symbolizes innocence, classism, and racism. We look through all of these statements from an 8 year old girl nicknamed Scout as she grows up during the Great Deppression, When Scout was around 7 years old, a trial shook the little town of Maycomb when a 19 year old girl accused a black man named Tom Robinson of raping her. Being set in the 1930’s when segregation was a prominent factor in America, With little evidence and witnesses Tom Robinson was still found guilty and was sentenced to death by electrocution.
In both of theses stories there is some precious stuff going on. In to kill a mockingbird Tom Robinson was accused of rape that he did not do, but because he was black he had got accused of it. In the report of Emmett Till Till was killed because he had want to the south to visit his family but he was killed because he was black. Emmett Till was innocent but because he had no wetness no one would have ever believed him in his point of view.
The case of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" has been a subject of debate. While some believe that Tom Robinson is guilty of the crime he was accused of, there is strong evidence to prove that he is not guilty. There is no evidence of Tom doing anything, the evidence from Mayella could not have been true and Tom did not have a fair trial. Firstly, the evidence against Tom Robinson is circumstantial and lacks any real proof of his guilt.
Based on the evidence during the trial Tom Robinson is not guilty because he was accused of raping Mayella Ewell. In the beginning of “Thomas Robinson testimony he reached around, ran his fingers under his left arm and lifted it. He guided his arm to the bible and his rubber-like left hand sought contact with the black binding”.(Lee 192.) This shows that Thomas Robinson didn’t rape Mayella Ewell because he put his hand on the bible to say that he never did that. This also shows that nobody with a broken arm could do something like that.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson represents the mockingbird because he is killed for just trying to live his life. In the trial where a white woman, Mayella Ewell, accused a black man, Tom Robinson, of rape, Tom Robinson is found guilty, although it seems to be clear that he did not do it. He then gets sentenced to death and while he waits for the death penalty, put into jail.
At the end of Tom’s trial, Tom Robinson was pleaded guilty by the jury. Scout expected this, yet still felt disappointed by the outcome. Scout feels conflicted with her society. Scout knew that Tom Robinson would have been guilty the moment she noticed the jury not looking at Tom. She feels disappointed about the outcome but was able to later come into terms with it better then Jem.
Tom Robinson’s trial began with Heck Tate as the prosecution's first witness. Tate, a venerable man, did not act like a truant - he answered all of the questions to the best of his ability. On the other hand, Bob Ewell, a thin man with crepey skin, displayed a level of impertinence with his obstreperous philippics against Tom Robinson punctuating his testimony. Judge Taylor and Atticus, however, proved him to be an asinine liar, and Bob Ewell ended his testimony with an impotent tirade about how being left-handed had nothing to do with the case. Mayella Ewell was the next witness, and her testimony proved that beneath the veneer, she was the loneliest person in Maycomb.
During the trial of “To Kill a Mockingbird” it was obvious that Tom Robinson could not have beaten up Mayella Ewell on the side of her face and body considering he didn’t have a working left arm. He got it caught in a cotton gin as a child and tore the muscles from the bone. Some people defiantly could not have believed Mayella and Mr. Ewell’s side of the story, especially after seeing Tom and his arm. However, Tom was still found guilty rather than innocent and no one in the county seemed upset about the decision other than his family, Atticus, and Jem. Atticus says, “They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it- seems that only children weep” (Lee 213).
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the story is set in the 1900’s, Maycomb, Alabama. During this time there was racism in the south and segregation which separated the whites and blacks from everything. There was also the Great Depression, the whole country was poor and people living in the country had to trade and do other jobs for people to either pay them off or to buy something from them. The trial in this book is about Mayella and Bob Ewell, two white people, claiming and arguing that Tom Robinson, a black person, raped Mayella Ewell. This trial is really important because at that time in the south, white people took advantage of black people and their kindness and thought they would take that or shut up just because they were black.
In To Kill a Mockingbird during 1937 the Tom Robinson trial took place and Mayella Ewell was a victim and an accuser but, that was only fiction. The real Scottsboro took place in the 1931 with two victims and accusers who are Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Although these are both happening around the same time period each trial was different. In both the non-fictional and the fictional accounts and how society shaped them as accusers and victims. Society shaped both Mayella and Ruby as victims.
American rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, wisely states “ Racism is man’s greatest threat to the man- the maximum hatred for a minimum of reason”. During the 1930s in the south, racism is very much relevant and exchanged between the white “supreme” race and people of color. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, racism heavily influences the town of Maycomb; this results in the African Americans being treated inferior and unequal. The definition of a mockingbird is a person who only contributes pleasant deeds but is taken advantage of. Tom Robinson, a black man, is accused of raping a white young woman.
Emily Callan Due Date: Tuesday, November 4th I am reading the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and I am on page 281. In this journal I will be predicting and… I predict that Tom Robinson will be convicted of raping Mayella Ewell because of the racism and bias he is facing.
Atticus uses his credibility as a renowned lawyer in Maycomb County and his confidence in Tom Robinson 's to prove the jury of Tom 's innocence. He also uses the simplicity in differentiating between black and white to show the simplicity of figuring out who is lying in this case, and who is not. He then goes on to say "The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. The defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this courtroom is."
In the South of the United States in the 1930´s, the justice system was very unfair towards colored people. Colored people that were sent to court could not receive a fair trial because of the prejudice and racism from the jury. This happened all the time, especially in Maycomb Alabama. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a colored man named Tom Robinson was convicted of assaulting a white woman just because of the color of his skin. Tom Robinson should have been found not guilty for many reasons.
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.
