Tom Robinson Trial

I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and I am on page 304. So far this book is about the Tom Robinson trial and how Scout, Jem, and Dill react. Even with all of the evidence pointing towards Tom being innocent, he was convicted of rape and sent to prison. In this journal I will be characterizing and predicting. Tom Robinson is compassionate and realistic. He is very compassionate. He helped Mayella with random jobs all of the time because he wanted to. She offered to pay him for his work, but he told her that it was not necessary and he did not want money from her. He did not want to take money from her because he knew that even a nickel was a lot for her and her family. He explained that he had to walk passed the Ewell

During the trial, he told Mr. Gilmer that he felt bad for Mayella. He explained that every time he was helping her, the children would just watch. He did not think that any of the children or her father ever helped her with anything. She had to do most of the work around the house by herself, and she was the only one who took care of the property. She was the only one who cared enough to make the property look semi good and plant the red flowers in the front yard. Tom was also realistic. Tom was fighting for his life in court, and he knew he had little or no chance of winning. He knew when he testified that he had no power to defend himself against the white prosecutor, Mr. Gilmer. Even though his case was pretty solid, with his broken arm, he knew that the white jury would more than likely convict him. Tom had to act like everyone expected him to. He had to address the white people as Miss, Sir, or Mister, and he had to be polite to them. Tom had to speak very carefully and try not to offend anyone or make it seem like he was trying to be better than anyone. He had to accept insults and condescension from Mr. Gilmer, and when he

Tom is a black man who lives in a time where many people consider Blacks as inferior. Blacks had a very small chance of winning a case in court. Most of the juries were made up of white men who only worried about getting rid of Blacks and nothing else. They would convict a black man even if all of the evidence pointed to him being innocent, especially if the case had anything to do with a white woman. Black men were not even allowed to offer their hand to a white woman without being accused of rape. The whole town is basically already against Tom. Not many care if he is innocent or not, either way they would probably convict him. They do not care about the evidence as long as the black man is put in jail. Most people in the town are so prejudice that they do not even have to know who Tom is, and they would still think he is a bad person. Mayella is a very convincing young girl. She is a white woman who is accusing a black man of raping her. That basically points to an automatic conviction no matter what the evidence shows. Almost every white person in Maycomb would more than likely believe a white woman’s word over a black man’s word any day. Even though most of her evidence does not line up the jury will probably feel compassion for her. Mayella used her emotions to her advantage. She cried every time Atticus asked her a question about her father, so she would not have to answers it. She tries to make the court and jury feel