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What Is The Ewell In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Understanding is a difficult thing. Some people believe that you can understand after hearing the facts, and others are convinced that you must walk a mile in a person’s shoes before knowing what it is like to live their life. I would agree with one of the two aforementioned claims, but I believe that my life is just not worth understanding. Some may say that is absurd, or hopeless, or dark. But you clearly do not understand.

I am a Ewell.

For anyone living in my small, hole-in-the-wall town called Maycomb, that would be enough. Four simple words describe my entire existence… it’s quite bleak, isn’t it? But for you, I may have to explain a little further. I may have to explain just what being a Ewell entails, and explain all of its …show more content…

Accused of having affairs with a black man named Tom Robinson, her entire reputation drifted to the ground like the leaves in late autumn. Along with her went my family, tied to my dearest sister like an anchor. My father desperately clung to the hope that the town would believe that he saved all of its white women from a dangerous black man, and all for the small sliver of optimism that he may be thought of in a slightly better way. I, however, knew much better than to believe my father and his manipulative ways. That poor black man, he was never guilty of anything. What most don’t know is that Mayella longed for the danger of a forbidden relationship with him, longed for the ability to make her own decisions, longed for power over the only people worth less than we were. My father and sister had finally lived up to their reputations, and I couldn’t be more embarrassed. We were …show more content…

Well, right next to one, to be a bit more specific. The smell of the town’s trash hung like a thick smog in the air, and it was so strong that what little clothing we had on the line dried with the smell of orange rinds and month-old breads and pastries from the bakery I’d never visited. Random pieces of waste littered the lawn, but not enough to cover Mayella’s beloved geraniums. They were the brightest shade of scarlet red you’d ever seen, but you would almost miss them as you passed by on the street. They were her form of faith, her aspiration to live with some dignity. I don’t know if she knows, but I find extraordinary joy in those geraniums. Though they were delicate and small, their fiery red pierced the grayscale of our life. Some days I dreamt of being my own geranium, of being able to project myself and my personality far beyond the restrictions and obstacles of my home life. Yet, like I said, I only think in these preposterous ways some of the time. Most of the time I only see the dirt, the grime, and the poverty, or I see the mess that has become my father, or how trapped Mayella truly is. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness must have never lived like

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