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In "To Kill a Mockingbird," how does Mayella respond when asked if she loves her father?
Quick answer:
When asked if she loves her father, Mayella Ewell responds evasively, initially saying her father, Bob Ewell, "does tollable, 'cept when..." but then retracts her statement under her father's intimidating gaze. She admits he is "tollable," except when drinking, hinting at abuse. Mayella's response suggests fear and manipulation, indicating a lack of true affection for her father, who likely abuses her, contributing to her false accusation against Tom Robinson.
In Chapter 18 of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell, the young woman who falsely accuses an African American man of raping her, takes the witness stand in the trial. Since she is the "victim" of a violent crime--and a particularly inflammatory one in the deeply racist town in which the story takes place--Mayella's testimony is extremely important. While the reader is aware that Tom is highly unlikely to receive a fair trial in the American South of the 1930s, we do not yet know the full extent of the injustice that is taking place—in effect, that Tom is physically incapable of having committed the crime. We do know, however, that justice is not being served.
When Mayella takes the stand, testifying against Tom, she is, expectedly, hostile to Atticus's questioning. As described by Scout, the story's narrator, Mayella "was looking at him [Atticus] like she was mad as hell." Mayella has already witnessed Atticus's cross-examination of her father, the virulently racist and despicable Bob Ewell, and she is very defensive during the questioning. Atticus is attempting to establish the atmosphere that no doubt exists in the Ewell household. Bob is a notorious drunk, and the family is known to be among the poorest in the county. Mayella, a 19-year-old girl without an education forced by circumstances into the role of parent to her younger siblings, is vulnerable to the manipulations of individuals in positions of power, including her father. All of this is known to Atticus, who then poses the question regarding Mayella's feelings about her father:
“Do you love your father, Miss Mayella?” was his next question.
“Love him, whatcha mean?”
“I mean, is he good to you, is he easy to get along with?”
“He does tollable, ‘cept when –”
“Except when?”
Mayella looked at her father and he sat up straight and waited for her to answer.
“Except when nothin’,” said Mayella. “I said he does tollable.”
Mr. Ewell leaned back in his chair again.
“Except when he’s drinking?” asked Atticus so gently that Mayella nodded.
“Does he ever go after you?”
"How do you mean?”
“When he’s—riled, has he ever beaten you?”
Mayella does not answer Atticus's question the way one would normally expect. As Atticus makes clear to no avail, Bob Ewell is almost certainly solely responsible for Mayella's wounds. Mayella does not, the reader can safely conclude, love this figure of authority who drinks away the welfare check while physically abusing his barely-adult daughter, whose existence is confined to the shack in which the family lives and where she is forced to parent six younger siblings.
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