TKAM Chapter 18

 In Chapter 18, Mayella Ewell is up on the witness stand. In his direct examination, Mr. Gilmer asked her only a few questions before she started crying. She probably cried right then in the beginning to appeal to the men of the jury's protective instincts. Even if she was crying for real, it still causes the white men to feel the need to "protect" her from Tom. She said she was crying because she was scared of Atticus, that he would expose her like how he exposed that Bob Ewell is left handed. This insinuates that she has something to hide, if she's scared of Atticus outing something. Judge Taylor gets her to calm down, and she proceeds with her story. On the night of November 21, she was on the front porch and Bob had asked her to chop up a chiffarobe for firewood while he was in the woods. She saw Tom Robinson walking by and asked him to chop up the chiffarobe for her and she would give him a nickel. She had went inside to get the nickel, and this is when she claims that Tom snuck up behind her, and started strangling and beating her. She said that the whole time she was yelling and fighting back as loud and hard as she could. The next thing she knew, Tom was gone, and Bob was yelling at her, "Who did it?" She then passed out and woke up to Heck Tate cleaning her up. Mr. Gilmer ends his direct examination there, and says as a joke that he expects "big bad Mr. Finch" to have some questions for her, but it also makes Atticus look like a bully and the jury will want to protect Mayella.                                                                                                           Atticus begins his cross examination, and was addressing Mayella as "ma'am" and "Miss Mayella," but she thought he was insulting her. Judge Taylor had to explain to her that Atticus is courteous to everyone. This is sad because it shows that she has hardly if ever been treated with respect in her life. Atticus begins asking her easy questions, saying that he's getting old and his memory isn't good. He then asks questions that paint a picture of what her home life is like. The welfare they receive is spent on booze for Bob, not food for his starving and dirty children, the water they drink basically comes from a dump, and they had to get their own water if they wanted to be clean. For the Ewells, it's every child for themself, because their mom is dead, and Bob is always off drunk in the woods somewhere. Atticus then asks Mayella if she had any friends, or if she loved her father. What's sad is not only does she not really have any friends, she doesn't seem to know what one is. She didn't even know at first what Atticus meant by loving her father. She said that he's "tollable," except when he's drinking, then said that he's never laid a hand on her in her life. This is around the time when Atticus's memory appeared to become accurate and rains questions on her. She said that Tom is the one who beat her. Atticus tells Tom to stand up, and then everyone sees that Tom's left arm is crippled. She still said that Tom beat and raped her, and Atticus asked her how. He asks more questions, up to the point where he point-blank asks her who was the one who beat her, Tom Robinson or Bob Ewell? She doesn't answer any of his questions, but at the end she goes on a rant, telling the jury if they didn't believe her that Tom raped her, then they were all cowards, and then she cries, and doesn't answer any of Mr. Gilmer's questions when he tries to get her back on track. This is not good for Tom's case because she's appealing once again to the jury's protective instincts, and they would feel like they needed to "protect" her from Tom. After Mayella stepped down from the stand, there was a ten minute recess. Mr. Braxton Underwood sees the children up in the balcony with the African Americans. Scout noticed that Mr. Gilmer is prosecuting reluctantly, as if he knows that Tom is innocent and Bob Ewell is trash and not a man of his word, but he's prosecuting only because it's his job. Judge Taylor asks Atticus how many witnesses he has, and Atticus says one. Judge says to call him. Tom Robinson is on the stand next.

 By evidence, it should be clear and obvious that Tom Robinson did not beat Mayella, Bob Ewell did. However, since it's Maycomb in the 1930s, the prosecution might win the case because of the racism in the town and because of the emotion Bob and Mayella have conveyed in their testimonies. Mayella's testimony did not line up with Bob's in some spots. Bob had told her to chop up the chiffarobe for firewood, but in Bob's testimony earlier, he said he was in the woods getting firewood. One of both of them is lying about that. Another hole in their testimonies is that Mayella said bob had asked her "Who did it?" however, Bob said that he saw it was Tom through the window. One of both of them is lying about this too. it's hard to not feel at least a little bad for Mayella, even though she had shown everyone in the courtroom contempt, but even that's not necessarily her fault either. The root of all of this is Bob Ewell. He's a poor father who doesn't raise his children, he's blaming Tom, an innocent man, for something he did just because he doesn't want to get in any legal trouble, he drinks and beats his children, it's because of him that his children also have no education because he apparently "needs" them at home (yet he goes off to the woods or a swamp to drink). I'm wondering why Mayella doesn't tell the truth, because if she tells the truth, wouldn't that also appeal to the jury's protective instincts and make them want to protect Mayella from Bob? Couldn't the law do something about the Ewell children's home life? Will Bob ever face the justice that he deserves for what he does to his children every day of their lives? I really hope that after Tom's testimony, the jury makes the right decision and say that Tom is "not guilty."