The Trial

In the trial Mayella, who is the daughter of Bob Ewell claimed that Tom Robinson, a black man assaulted and raped her. She was so afraid of her father that she lied. She also was guilty and like a child she needed to blame someone and get rid of the evidence. She broke the "rule" of segregation because she kissed a black man, being a white woman. Tom was put on trial as the scapegoat for a crime he wasn't even close to committing. He showed compassion and kindness to a white woman and he "god forbid" felt "sorry for her" which wasn't okay for him apparently but even when everyone knew of Bob's drinking problem and the strong notion he beats his own children as well as sexually assaulted one they still put tom Robinson away. Why? because no one wants to ever think for a minuet that tom was a kind hearted man all because he was black. And Mayella, has to take the abuse which disgusts me. You are not strong when you force power from someone. We see woman a weaker humans and blame them for what happens. In the book I feel as though the topic of rape was introduced to show how powerless it makes someone feel, and how it shouldn't be taken lightly.

“I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honoured code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, and her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done—she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim—of necessity she must put him away from her—he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offence.

“What was the evidence of her offence? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was her daily reminder of what she did. What did she do? She tempted a Negro.

“She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards." (Lee, 203-204)

Tom should have never been convicted and Mayella's father needs to be taken away.

TKAM Trial

Blog 4: Report on the trial

The trial of “To Kill A Mockingbird”

Well... What can you say? the southern town declared Tom Robinson guilty of abusing and raping Mayella Ewell when the crime was most likely done by Bob Ewell. Mayella was in the wrong for trying to seduce or draw in Tom Robinson because she caused a lot of trouble. The trial ended with Tom Robinson being sent to jail. One day in the exercise yard at the jail Tom was spotted running to the fence when the supervisors shot him senseless. 17 times that was a little bit too extreme, if Tom was trying to escape at least they could have shot him in the leg to get him to stop running, but not too kill him, he was innocent and had a family. This all was started by the mental anger of Bob Ewell... The death of Tom Robinson is on the guilty conscious of Bob Ewell, but will Bob Ewell receive the same treatment of death? “There's a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it's dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time”

Like this event in TKAM. Tom Robinson was treated unfairly for being black and supposedly raping a woman, another black man was charged similarly too. Till was a 14 year old boy who was visiting his relatives in Mississippi. He was charged with flirting with a white woman... and later that day he was at his uncle's house when men came and gourged his eye out, beat him and shot him till he died for something he didn’t do like Tom Robinson. Both boys were charged unfairly and justice was not served only death was.

https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/01/09/worst-cases-white-people-wrongfully-accusing-black-people-committing-crimes/

Girl vs Boy

"Scout, I'm tellin' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home i declare to the lord you're gettin' more like a girl everyday" when i heard jem say this i was furious it brings me to flashback to all the days of when women were marching for their rights i feel when he said this comment it all went down the drain i couldn't believe it i believe women have fought for something but i guess this will never change

Unfair Trial

During the trial of Tom Robinson its clear to any read that the whole thing is dominated by white men like most the world at that time. Tom Rob, a black man, is being accused of raping Mayella Ewell by her and her father, two white people, which is a clear lie to any reader. The father, Bob, is covering up for himself and his disgusting acts of raping and beating his own daughter. Mayella is a young girl who is seriously messed up at the hand of her gross dad. But of course how was she supposed to change anything because after all, she's just a girl. The life she lives is one of loneliness and sadness but obviously she still has the ability to shout "Hey, I was totally kidding. This kind innocent man didn't rape me my crazy father did."
When asked if he was the father of Mayella Ewell in court, that crazy father chooses to show how much he loves his daughter by responding "Well, if I ain't I can't do much about it now, her mother's dead."
He says this as if it is just such a burden to have her around. She cooks and cleans and respects him while he harshly abuses her but no of course she is useless in the eyes of this old sleezy drunk.
This is almost similar to how Aunt Alexandra treats Scout. She is a seriously smart girl but no one appreciates her for who she is because women are simply seen as less.

"You never really understand a person until you, until you climb into his skin"

This quote really stood out to me because it relates to kinda of what i've been through in the text Walter Cunningham is the only one without lunch as "molasses buckets appear and the ceiling danced with metallic light" all the lunches appearing out of no where and you look around and see that, it makes you feel sad ad embarrassed people knowing that you wont have lunch tomorrow or the next day. Personally i feel like you shouldn't look down on some one based on society instead base it on the person and you might have a postive out look.

The legal system sucks

The trial in TKAM would infuriate anyone who has somewhat good of morals, for a multitude of depressing reasons. One being that it was clear as day if you listened and paid attention to evidence, "She says what papa do to her don't count." that Bob Ewell was sexually assaulting his daughter, yet even Atticus completely ignored this obvious fact. The other major reason being that Tom Robinson was so obviously innocent, and yet the jury concluded he was guilty, simply because he was black.

The jury did not seem to care about Mayella, but was rather only interested in using Tom Robinson's trial as a sick sort of scapegoat, or just as some kind of twisted disgusting form of entertainment.
The other obvious issue is how the jury completely ignores the evidence that Robinson could not have hit Mayella, because her facial injuries were on her left , and his left arm was basically a useless, shriveled stump.

The trial also bothers me because had Bob Ewell been found guilty, Mayella would have been saved from further abuse, but instead, the Jury's decision was as predictable as to be expected of  southern redneck racists, and reminds me that throughout the book, scout is repeatedly told by her father that people were entitled to their opinions, and that's the issue with Atticus. He tries to wave it away as just opinion or societal training, but its that kind of cowardice that keeps women like Mayella in abusive homes, and makes men like Tom Robinson dead. 

The Trial

“”I mean I didn’t stay long enough for him to run me off.” “You’re very candid about this, why did you run so fast?” “I says I was scared, suh.” “If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?” “Like I says before, it weren’t safe for any n***** to be in a--fix like that.” “But you weren’t in a fix--you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she’d hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?” “No suh I’s scared I’d be in court, just like I am now.” “Scared of arrest, scared you’d have to face up to what you did?” “No suh, scared I’d hafta face up to what I didn’t do.”” This quote is from the trial when Mr.Gilmer was questioning Tom Robinson about the incident. Basically what happened during the trial was Tom gave a great testimony, there was no evidence that he raped Mayella, and was honest about everything, while the Ewells were rude to the court and lied about what happened, but the Ewells won the case and Tom Robinson was sent to jail. The jury was completely biased all because the Ewells are white and Tom Robinson is black. The people took the white families word over the black mans word not based on evidence or facts but off of race. The jury should have been able to look past race and make their decision based on the testimonies and let Tom Robinson be free. To me this relates to all the police brutality against black males in modern time. In America, black males are twice as likely to get shot by the police than a white man. This shows that there is still racism in America, maybe not as bad as it was in the early 1930’s but it is still a problem.