How Does Mayella Ewell Obtain Power?

Mayella had a great amount of power in the courtroom during the trial of Tom Robinson. This completely classless manipulative woman used the disadvantages she was dealt in life to her benefit. She made advances toward this black man, when he did not reciprocate those feelings she accused him of rape. He is convicted and sent to prison because of her. Through this, she also gains power that removes her from her father’s sexual abuse. He does not want her because of the relations with a

In Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, a young white woman from Maycomb, Alabama, named Mayella Ewell is charging Tom Robinson a black man of rape. Mayella Ewell is not powerful in the sense that she is classified within class, race, and gender.

However,Mayella does have power for her race. She shows power in chapter eighteen when she

Is Mayella ewell powerful?That is the question that is asked and must be answered.Throughout the story” To kill a mockingbird” Mayella shows some glimpses of power but not enough to say she is powerful.For example in the beginning she shows that she can not even control her home life so how can she be powerful.Also she shows that she is just too poor for her to have power.Now in the next three paragraphs I will explain my thinking on why I believe Mayella is not powerful.

Race, gender, and class are all possessions people have that can make them powerful, but at the same time they can make themselves a powerless person too. Mayella Ewell is a white female who comes from a poor family living in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. In the story To Kill a Mockingbird, an African American man by the name of Tom robinson is accused of raping Mayella Ewell. Mayella Ewell won the case and the trial which sent Mr. Robinson to jail where he eventually got killed. Mayella Ewell’s race was powerful enough to kill a man that was accused of a crime he never did; however, her gender and class power make her to a point where she is not a powerful person at all.

AH! Power, we have electrical power, mechanical power, but what about social power? Social power is power over one’s own life and others; isn’t it what people sought after? The book “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee has its foundation laid on social power, but in this text, it focuses on how an African-American in the town of Maycomb, Alabama, was wrongly accused of raping a poor, white woman, which is the reason for him losing the case, but did she gain any class and gender power from the case? The text says not, so she won on the basis of race, but in terms of gender and class, she is not so powerful after all.

Do race, class, and gender really affect a rape case? In the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, a white woman named mayella accuse Tom Robinson of rape. Tom Robinson is an African American man. this also takes place when the Jim Crow laws were still put into play, this adds on to how mayella has power. Of course, this comes from the book To Kill a Mockingbird, But it is a serious case to talk about.

(“DBQ: Is Mayella Powerful?” 15) With this situation in mind, Mayella gains power because the jury can see how Mayella is usually treated by her father, which brings her closer to completing her plan and getting rid of her father. When measuring power, the factors of gender and social class are closely related.

White or colored, superior or inferior, and important or invisible are the different categories society imposes on people. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the narrator Scout is a part of the Finch family. They are white people with good morals due to Atticus Finch, Scout’s father. He guides his children to seek equality and treat others equally regardless of their class, gender, or race. Atticus tries to enforce his beliefs by taking on the Tom Robinson case. Tom Robinson is an honest, hard working black man accused of raping a white woman known as Mayella Ewell. Although there was evidence to prove his innocence, Mayella’s dirty lies were placed above his innocence. This situation is clearly an example of the ideals society

Power is the ability to do something or act in a particular way. This story took place in Alabama during the depression. Mayella lacks power because of her class, race, gender, but her race makes her powerful. Now, with her social class being very low she lacks power.

Andrew James A. Brown-Hall 4th Block 9th comp. Lit Monday November 3, 2014 Is Mayella Powerful? Power is the ability to controls one’s life and the lives’ of others. In Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mayella Ewell is believed to have been raped by suspect Tom Robinson, a poorly treated and disrespected Negro.

She goes through obstacles in her life on a daily basis and is believed not to be of much worth. Words such as dirty, poor, victim, and social outcast is used to describe Mayella. In measuring how much power Mayella holds, race, gender, and class shows herself having barely any power at all. Concerning her life at home with her abusive father, the way people see her, and how she is considered inferior as a person compared to males, Mayella cannot control her life the way she wishes. Throughout her life, she has experienced little to no respect and inappropriate actions involving her

Power had a huge part on how people were treated back in the times of slavery. In the novel Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, an African-American woman named Dana traveled between the 1800s and the present to help her great-grandfather throughout his life while also trying to shape him into a better person in the racist society that he was in. One of the things she noticed was how power could dictate how people lived their lives, especially since slavery was prevalent in the area her great grandfather, Rufus Weylin, lived in. Dana, Rufus, and Alice were all characters whose power affected how their lives turned out and the choices that they made.

The definition of power is to have control over a person's life as well as the lives of those around them. The Jim Crow Laws are laws that separate the whites from the African-American. Southern women in the 1930s are considered delicate and fragile. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Mayella Ewell accuses Tom Robinson of raping her. At the end of the book, Tom Robinson was executed because he tried to escape prison. Mayella and her family are non-working poor people who live by the dump. Mayella accuses Tom Robinson of raping her. Tom Robinson is an African-American, who is considered to be the lowest class during the 1930s. Race refers to the categorization of people based on physical differences. Class refers to a person’s level of income and education and often boils down to how much money one is able to earn. Gender refers to the roles and behaviors that society expects from men and women. Mayella Ewell can be a powerful or powerless character. Mayella is powerless because of her class, but her gender and race ultimately make's her powerful.

As Boss Tweed used to say, “The way to have power is to take it.” Therefore, it is not surprising that the characters of Kindred by Octavia Butler fight throughout the book to gain power from each other. They all use methods ranging from violence to influence to gain even a slight amount of power from each other. Even Alice and Dana who are enslaved women during the 1800’s are able to use their words to influence their owners and the powerful white men in society. Like other black women during this time period, they use their bodies and other unconventional methods to slowly gain power over their owners until they are able to influence them to do what they want. Henceforth, Butler wants to demonstrate to the reader that, even during the antebellum south, enslaved women were able to use their influence, resilience and courage to eventually gain power over their owners.