The Truth about Maycomb County During the Great Depression During the Great Depression, most African-Americans didn’t have a voice. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the character Tom Robinson is convicted of rape. This sentence was not justified because he was not found guilty by a fair trial. In addition to this, Mayella Ewell’s family and the community are also responsible for the outcome of this situation because they all kept silent about what really happened in Maycomb county. They are also responsible for not protecting Tom Robinson from being wrongly accused of something he did not do. Bob Ewell is the main antagonist in the novel, he is an abusive racist and drunk. The Ewells are the trashiest people in the town of Maycomb county but not because of where they live. In the novel, it states, “Atticus said the Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations” (Lee 33) They are the source of all the town’s problems, especially Bob Ewell. The Ewells are a family that has never been able to gain respect from the rest of Maycomb. They are lower class, poor, and distrusted by people, …show more content…
They aren’t the ones who started the drama, it all started when Mayella would talk to him and one day she decided to invite him in after this happened she liked seeing him, so one day she decided to kiss him, and then her dad saw and blew it out of proportion. Tom Robinson said, “she reached up an’ kissed me ’side of th’ face” (Lee 221). He didn’t know how to react so he decided to pin the blame on Tom, but he also decided to punish Mayella by beating her in hopes of teaching her a lesson. Or maybe every time Bob Ewell would drink he would forget what he was doing and his alternate side would show his angry resentful side. The townspeople didn’t have any other evidence to prove it so they just go along with whatever people