Mayella is a victim of assault and abuse. This was not inflicted by Tom Robinson, the black man who allegedly raped Mayella in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. Out of hatred and racism, Bob Ewell blamed him for the offense. Robert “Bob” Ewell is the drunken, abusive father of Mayella who was the victim of a sinister crime. Instead of facing up to what he was causing and the own truth about his family’s reputation, he wanted to control his daughter. Out of fear of more beatings, she protected him by accepting the punishment that Tom was to bear. Mayella was abused, neglected and looked over. Her hands and mind were filthy with the dirt of abuse and her forced conviction of Tom’s alleged crime
To help cope with her internal and external beating, she plants geraniums to have a little hope in her life. The geraniums suggest that Mayella desires to be better than her surroundings, to make something bright in her dull world, to aspire to higher things. But whatever Mayella’s hopes and dreams are, she doesn’t get a chance to express them to the reader. She almost exposes her father’s true intentions to Atticus, but her father restrains her. Her father abuses her and doesn’t allow the necessary human connection. The flowers help branch out her isolated, grimy world and give her a small shred of hope.
If you have a controlling abusive authority figure in your life, you protect them out of fear. Mayella fears of what her father will do to harm her, if she speaks out of the abuse he afflicted upon her. Tom Robinson was just the perfect person for him to blame. He’s a black man who Mayella attempted to seduce just to have a human connection. Just because of his race, and the huge amount of racial discrimination in Maycomb, everyone believes he did it. Mayella is a silenced victim of abuse and social segregation. She is silenced by her abusive father and of the fear that he will injure her once again.
In her grimy, socially isolated world Mayella lives in fear every day of what her father will do to harm her. The geraniums she plants give in a little to the human association she so greatly craves. Her father tries to make her world even smaller, by crushing that connection and forcing her to convict him. Just like the geraniums she plants, she is in dire need of a little sunlight in her boxed in world.
This is really good, your final right? I enjoyed reading it and your word choice was fantastic. On occasions you were a tiny bit repetitive, but other than that I would give you a ten for your insight and creativity.
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