Character Usage and Symbolism Analysis for Harper Lees

To Kill a Mockingbird
By Andrew Mark Stewart, Esquire

Imagine a man who is proven innocent of any crime, who works to support a
family in times of bias and prejudice against him merely for existing. Imagine that this
man is convicted, not because he committed a crime, but the fact that he made a race
that viewed themselves so pure compared to him and his own kin, and was convicted
for it.In Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird, the tragic character Tom Robinson is used to
demonstrate that ones place in society can be a determining factor in regard to justice.
Tom Robinsons kind is considered to be at the bottom rung of society in the
United States. When he is wrongfully accused of raping a white woman, the strictly
taboo idea of a white woman being subject to a black mans intimacy causes fears of
blacks to flare as the community shakes. Not only is the thought of Toms race even
touching a white forbidden and a trigger for hostility, but his place in society has ensured
that he is subject to this aggression.
Toms place on the social ladder and the poor white girl Mayella Ewells view that
he is an easy mark for sexual advance begins the fiasco of him being accused of rape.
Tom testifies that as he was trying to help Mayella around the house, she made sexual
advances on him. Inviting him into her home one day to help with a door, she attacks.
Tom says, She said she aint never kissed a grown man so she may as well kiss a
*nigger This demonstrates that she does not see him as equal to a grown white man
and that she might as well settle for someone of lower social class. The actuality that he
is a target of her sexual advances due to being of a lower caste shows the underlying
bias against blacks in this scenario. Bob Ewell soon comes to the scene and spot

Mayella and Tom, yelling you goddamn whore! Ill kill you! Showing his view that she
is being disobedient by pursuing a black love interest.
When Tom is being held for his supposed crime, a mob forms and gathers
outside the town jail, telling Atticus, who is on watch, to get out of the way so they may
get to Tom. You know what we want, another man said. Get aside from the door, Mr.
Finch.(pg.202) In this scene, the men in this mob (all white farmers) want to get to Tom,
corroborating the earlier statement that Tom is subject to hostilities created by the idea
that he, a black man, raped Mayella, a white girl. Inasmuch that he is a black man the
idea that he had touched a white woman so intimately is forbidden, and the
consequences that arise from his skin color are all the more severe. Such as the
forming of what could only be called a lynch mob. This intended to punish Tom for
violating this taboo.
Tom is tried as an already guilty man because of the premature notion that blacks
cannot be trusted near white women. When finally the time comes for the trial, Atticus
hopes to prove Tom innocent by presenting enough evidence to show he was not the
culprit. When Mayella is called to the stand, she testifies that Tom was on top of her and
began to hit and choke her. When Heck Tate is called, he testifies that he saw her right
eye blackened and choke marks around her neck. Now, when Atticus is presented this
evidence he tells the court that Tom has been crippled in his left arm since age twelve.
Now if he was to have choked and hit and taken advantage of her, would he not need
two functioning hands to do so? Also, if he were directly on top of her and hitting her
eye, his left hand would not be able to have hit her there or hold her down, so she might
have escaped when his hand was not holding her. This evidence alone and the shouted

testimony of Toms employer that he has never been any trouble should seem enough
to prove that he is not guilty. However, Tom is questioned about why he helped Mayella
for free, he says that he felt sorry for her. Like a shark, the prosecution leaps and dooms
all chance of Tom being found innocent. Despite overwhelming evidence that he is
innocent, a black man, considered inferior, feeling sorry for Mayella is another taboo.
For this blunder, Tom is convicted. (When questioned) Yes suh. I felt might sorry for
her; she seemed to try moren the rest of em- You felt sorry for her? You felt sorry for
her? Mr. Gilmer seemed to rise to the ceiling. The witness realized his mistake and
shifted uncomfortably in the chair. But the damage was done. Below us, nobody liked
Tom Robinsons answer. (pg. 264)
Tom Robinson is an obviously innocent man, and he may have been acquitted
from the charges. Yet it is one blunder that incriminated him, the very idea that he, a
man whose race is considered inferior, could even fathom pitying a white. It was Toms
place in society that made his pity a capital offense, and it was what spelled the end.