To Kill A Mockingbird Dbq
Do race, class, and gender make Mayella powerful?
Being a powerful person is having the ability to influence the way other people behave or act. To determine whether or not a person is powerful several factors have to be considered. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird the character of Mayella can be an example of a person who can or cannot have power depending on what kind of power is being taken into account. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee displays Mayella Ewell as a lonely white woman who lives in a miserable place and is abused by her father. In the novel Mayella has power according to race, however she does not possess enough power to be considered a powerful person.
Mayella does not possess the power of class because her family and her live in poor conditions, which makes them belong to the lower class.The site where Mayella and her family reside is: “behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin.”(Document A).
Also Scout describes how the place where Mayella lives looks like: “Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls . . . What passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts.”(Document A). The description of the place helps …show more content…
The proof that Mayella is abused by her father is delivered when Tom is describing his version of the events at the trial: “Tom Robinson shut his eyes tight. “He says you goddamn whore, I’ll kill ya.”(Document B). Tom claims that Mayella is verbally abused by her father. Also Atticus states that:“there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left”(Document B). Which proves how she is mistreated because of the fact that she is a woman and she cannot defend herself. The fact that Mayella is a woman makes her powerless because of how men had power over women at that
Being a powerful person is having the ability to influence the way other people behave or act. To determine whether or not a person is powerful several factors have to be considered. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird the character of Mayella can be an example of a person who can or cannot have power depending on what kind of power is being taken into account. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee displays Mayella Ewell as a lonely white woman who lives in a miserable place and is abused by her father. In the novel Mayella has power according to race, however she does not possess enough power to be considered a powerful person.
Mayella does not possess the power of class because her family and her live in poor conditions, which makes them belong to the lower class.The site where Mayella and her family reside is: “behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin.”(Document A).
Also Scout describes how the place where Mayella lives looks like: “Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls . . . What passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts.”(Document A). The description of the place helps …show more content…
The proof that Mayella is abused by her father is delivered when Tom is describing his version of the events at the trial: “Tom Robinson shut his eyes tight. “He says you goddamn whore, I’ll kill ya.”(Document B). Tom claims that Mayella is verbally abused by her father. Also Atticus states that:“there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left”(Document B). Which proves how she is mistreated because of the fact that she is a woman and she cannot defend herself. The fact that Mayella is a woman makes her powerless because of how men had power over women at that