Vineeth Yeevani

The Ewells in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, are considered by the townspeople to be disreputable people. This act of categorizing family members into one group can have disastrous consequences on a family. For example, the townspeoples views of the Ewells possibly caused the demise of the family in the first place. However, some of the Ewells rise above the norm for their family and become responsible Maycomb citizens.

The townspeople arent necessarily wrong in their views of the Ewells because they have been conditioned by so many generations of disreputable Ewells. The Ewells live on the edge of Maycomb counties garbage dump, and essentially, all of their belongings come from that. Bob Ewell certainly doesnt help the view of his family. He is rowdy and very violent, as shown by the beatings he deals his children. Also, he is very threatening, such as when he tells Atticus that he is going to kill him for certain. On top of all of these horrible qualities, he cant hold any jobs and because of this, his family can never rise out of poverty. The Ewell children dont help their familys reputation, since they, like, their father are always running around and never going to school. All in all, the Ewells conditions make them seem less than human to the residents of Maycomb.

Mayella Ewell, was very different compared to the rest of her family. She always kept herself clean and was responsible with the meager money her father brought in. She also was nice to African-American people and didnt view them as trash. Even though many circumstances should have conformed Mayella Ewell to the mold that her family's reputation entails, she is still a responsible citizen.

The consequences of her very different outlook on life causes much of the book to take place. To begin with, Mayella Ewell was always treated the same as African-American people were treated during that period in the south. This lead her to feel very different about AfricanAmericans than many other people felt at the time. She treated them almost as her equal. As a natural consequence of this, she started to like Tom Robinson, and broke the time honored tradition that no white woman should ever touch a black man. Because of doing this, she was pulverized by her father and had to lie about what happened to her. She has to go to court and is disgraced in public for what she did. Yet, after all this, she practically admitted in open court that she tempted Tom Robinson and she initiated the attack and defied what all the people in that courtroom thought. Because most people believed that the Ewells are pathological liars and thought the Mayella Ewell was the exact same as the rest of them, when she admitted the truth about what happened, she showed the townspeople that even an Ewell could be good.

In the beginning, the citizen of Maycomb viewed the Ewells as trash, but their views were radically changed by the actions of Mayella Ewell. If Mayella hadnt admitted what had happened to her, then the townspeople's views would have been vindicated. However she did admit what she did and how she blamed Tom Robinson and proved unequivocally that she was a responsible citizen. In todays world, and in history, many wars have been fought over perceptions that people have. Included under this is racism and sexism. To Kill A Mockingbird, is a story about love for other people, and people can only love if they dont and arent judged based on things they cant control. Mayella Ewell embodies the fact that peoples perceptions can have potential disastrous consequences.