Examples Of Power In To Kill A Mockingbird

How do you define power when it comes to race, class, and gender? Mayella has some power in To Kill A Mockingbird because she is a white female, however in class she is at the very bottom. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird takes place in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. All families were just coming out of the Great Depression, everyone was poor some were more than others. For Mayella she was very poor. When it comes to race Mayella has power. In race Mayella has a lot of power. Mayella is white, in the 1930’s being white meant having a lot of power. When everyone walked into the courtroom they notice the whole jury is white. Everyone knows Tom is guilty before the trial even starts. The adults knew there was no hope for Tom, that Mayella already won because no white jury is going to decide in favor of a colored man over a white woman. At the end of the trial the evil assumption was all Negroes lie, all Negroes are basically …show more content…
She is a female. In the courtroom when Atticus is questioning Mayella he asks if she loves her father, Mayella says he is tollable meaning not so bad in dialect. Atticus comes back and says “Except when he’s drinking?” Mayella goes on to say I have never kissed a grown man before and what my papa does does not count. Everyone in the courtroom turns to Bob Ewell and he is giving Mayella the “say another word and I am going to kill you” look. This is when they realize Mayella is being abused by her father. Everyone is feeling sorry for her and hating Bob when he thought he was looking like a hero no one thought that. Going back to the evil assumption saying “Negro men are not to be trusted around our women” so she has power over Negro men. During the trial Atticus calls Mayella Ma’am and she thinks he is mocking her because she has never had enough respect for people to call her that. Overall Mayella does have power in gender; however, when it comes to class Mayella does not have as much power as in race and

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