suffers from physical, verbal, and sexual abuse at the hands of her violent, offensive father and is forced to raise her siblings on her own. Without a mother or friends, Mayella has absolutely no support system and experiences a difficult, arduous life. During her testimony, Mayella is depicted as a frightened, uneducated young woman who was forced by her father as well as Maycomb's prejudiced society to offer a fabricated story after breaking the "time-honored" social code of tempting a black man.

Initially, Mayella believes that Atticus is mocking her by calling her "ma'am" and admits that she does not have a social life. She also lives in abject poverty, and Tom Robinson seems to be the only person who ever treated her with respect. Even Scout pities Mayella and says,

it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. When Atticus asked had she any friends, she seemed not to know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child...Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her (Lee, 195).

During Atticus's closing remarks, he tells the jury that he pities Mayella because "she is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance" (Lee, 207). Despite Mayella's ignorance, terrible home life, and lack of support system, her decision to falsely accuse Tom Robinson of rape cannot be overlooked or forgiven. Atticus states that his pity can only extend so far and proves that Mayella's testimony was fabricated. Overall, Mayella Ewell is depicted as a complex character who is a victim of her upbringing and makes the selfish decision to falsely accuse Tom Robinson to preserve her reputation and please her father.

If not for her reprehensible act of falsely accusing Tom Robinson--possibly the only person to ever act kindly towards her--Mayella Ewell would be an entirely sympathetic character in To Kill a Mockingbird. Mayella is one pitiful young woman: Nearly 20 years old, she acts as if she is a child, blubbering on the witness stand at the mere sight of "big bad Mr. Finch." Her behavior causes Judge Taylor to "scratch his thick white hair" and "let her cry for awhile" before admonishing her to behave like "a big girl and sit up straight." Mayella is forced to serve as the surrogate mother for the rest of the Ewell children (their mother is dead), and she rarely leaves the house. She has no friends, and doesn't even seem to understand the concept of friendship when she is questioned by Atticus. She "tempts" Tom Robinson--a married, crippled Negro man--simply because he is the most available male available, passing by her house daily and having acted kindly to her in the past. But her intentions on the day of the "attack" are not worthy of sympathy; instead, she calculatingly invites (orders) Tom into the house on the ruse of needing the hinges fixed on a door. When she gets her chance, she decides to kiss him, since

"... she never kissed a grown man before an' she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don't count."

Tom's testimony brings up another point, that her father, Bob, may have been sexually abusing her--yet another reason to feel sorry for Mayella. But she decides to go along with Bob's story--that Tom beat and raped her when it must have been Bob who assaulted his own daughter--and her lies help to convict Tom and eventually cause his death.

In a sense, Mayella Ewell could be considered "powerful" while she is on the witness stand because of the simple fact that she is white. In Maycomb's prejudiced court, Mayella's testimony is automatically considered to be truthful—even against Tom's word. Though she comes from the most despicable family in the county, her statements have the power to essentially end Tom Robinson's life. Whether or not her statements are actually truthful doesn't make a difference because the jury is made up of racist individuals who have already decided that Tom is guilty. Mayella's testimony conflicts with her father's, and it is obvious that she is lying, but her white privilege is enough to convince the jury that she was assaulted and raped. Outside of the courthouse, Mayella is powerless. She is an outcast who is forgotten by the community and Scout mentions that she is the loneliest person in Maycomb.

Mayella clearly deserves condemnation. She accused an innocent man of rape, and persisted in the lie throughout the trial, thus committing perjury and sending him in effect to his death. So in a very real sense, she has Tom's blood on her hands. But on the other hand, we can sympathize with Mayella, even as we condemn her actions. Her father Bob is an abusive drunkard who is unwilling to care for his family. As the oldest daughter whose mother is dead, Mayella is thus given the responsibility of taking care of the seven children. They live in desperate poverty, near starvation, and are viewed by contempt by most of the town. Tom agreed to help Mayella, in fact, because he took pity on her and thought she could use a helping hand. It says much about the realities of race in To Kill a Mockingbird that his sympathy for Mayella, who is white, got him in trouble in the first place. Even more tragic, the fact that he says he felt sorry for a white person is probably a major factor leading to his unjust conviction. But Mayella, like many other characters in To Kill A Mockingbird, is complex.