Loneliness In To Kill A Mockingbird

Words: 630
Pages: 3

Loneliness can kill a person if it gets out of control and this is exactly what happened to Mayella Ewell. Mayella Ewell, from To Kill a Mockingbird, is a nineteen-year-old girl who lives with her abusive father. Mayella’s mother passed away when she was younger, leaving her to take care of her siblings and be a mother figure for them. Between her father beating her and having to take care of her younger siblings, Mayella has a lot on her plate. She does not have many friends due to the fact that she is always busy with her family, and because of this she gets very lonely. During the peak of her loneliness, she turns to Tom Robinson - a black man in the community - for comfort. When her father, Bob Ewell, catches her with Tom, he abuses her and claims that Tom raped her. For these reasons, Mayella Ewell deserves both sympathy and contempt for her actions. Mayella Ewell deserves to be blamed for what happened to Tom. During Tom’s trial, Atticus Finch - who was defending Tom - asks Mayella many questions hoping that she will admit that her father beat her, not Tom. To all of these questions Mayella would give no answer and just sit in silence. Finally, Atticus asked, “‘Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father?’” (Lee 187). Again, she gave no answer. At this point, Mayella had been given a countless amount of …show more content…
Since she is always busy with her chaotic family, she does not have time to go out and make friends. She gets very lonely and turns to Tom Robinson for comfort. When her father sees them together he begins to beat Mayella up and then accuses Tom of raping her. Although Mayella’s loneliness did end up getting Tom shot, it was solely her father’s fault that she was lonely in the first place; moreover, people of the community should feel a strong sense of sympathy for Mayella