A highly sympathetic character, Mayella Ewell proves to be
a confused and emotional young woman when she testifies in the trial of Tom Robinson in
To Kill a Mockingbird. The lonely and friendless daughter of Bob
Ewell, Mayella spends her life taking care of her younger brothers and sisters while Bob
is away drinking and causing trouble. Tom appears to be the only person who shows her
any sympathy, volunteering to do chores for her on occasion. But when she tries to show
her affection by groping and kissing him, Tom (a married man) beats a retreat. But Bob
sees him first, and it is he that beats Mayella for her indiscretion with a black man.
Mayella, weak and fearful of her father, apparently agrees to back Bob's story of Tom
raping her.
Mayella is out of place in the courtroom--and
probably any public setting--and she mistakes Atticus' polite civility for mocking
insults. She has never been called "ma'am" or "Miss Mayella" before (except possibly by
Tom), and she seems intimidated by the men in the courtroom. Her confusion of the events
comes in part from her lack of education, and she is never able to get her story
straight. First she says that Tom hit her, then that he didn't, and finally decides that
she can't remember. When Atticus asked her how Tom raped her, Mayella
replied,
"I
don't know how he done it, but he done
it.
Atticus "rained questions
on her," and the frightened Mayella had no answers. She finally summoned the strength to
call all the "fine fancy gentlemen" in the courtroom "yellow, stinkin' cowards," and
then said no more. Scout thought that
I guess if she hadn't been so poor and ignorant,
Judge Taylor would have put her under the jail for the contempt she showed everybody in
the courtroom.
A character
deserving of great pity, Mayella loses the sympathy of the reader by turning on the one
man who had showed her kindness, and the lies she tells about Tom eventually costs him
his life.
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