Journal #6 chapter 16-19 Mayella Ewell

Mayella sat with her hands in her lap not looking up at the people looking at her. She inconspicuously tried straightening a piece of her hair that was sticking up to one side. It was to no use. At home she would have just spit in her hand and wiped it on her hair to make it lay flat, but she knew that that was not ok for court. This morning she had gotten up early and taken a bath.

No one had helped her whatsoever to carry pail after pail of water to get enough to sink herself into. She had looked though the trash and found a broken comb witch she used to brush through the knots and tangles of her hair. After Pa had gotten angry at her that one time and cut her hair of with a knife she had been gradually trying to grow it out and make it even. She had washed her best clothes and had them laid out. She was the only one who ever tried to keep anything clean.

All the other members of her family were men and they expected her to do everything. If she didn’t than she would get beaten. After every time she would get beaten she would have to stay in bed for a day. No one would come to help her, not her father nor any of her brothers and sisters.

The only person who had ever shoed any kindness to her in her whole life was a negro man. When she first saw him she had taken pity on him. She had been there the day he had gotten his arm in the cotton gin. She had seen his friends running for help. She asked them what was wrong and they had replied “We need a doctor, Tom’s got his arm in the cotton gin” she had run to the field to see if there was anything she could do to help. He was lying on the ground and there was blood all around him. He was screaming in pain she then felt compassion for this poor crippled Negro boy and that compassion had never left her.

Mayella wanted to die, she wanted to kill herself. After first kissing this man and then saying he raped her. What was wrong with her? She loved him but at the same time she was convicting him to death. She was just so lonely and sad and confused, she wished that there was someone that could be there for her that could in someway help her. She at this point was old enough to know that neither of those options were possible.

Was Tom Robinson so OBLIVIOUS to the fact that she loved him? Didn’t he see it in her eyes when she would ask him to help her? She would INDULGE in watching him. So strong, but she knew that they couldn’t be together for many reasons. One, he did not love her in return. Two, he was married and with children and three, she was a poor beaten girl who had never before two days ago kissed someone. She would AMIABLY though her self of a cliff right now.

Oh no… the court was starting. She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt and looked up into the face of her fear. Atticus. She had ACQUAINTED herself with him before. So she knew… she knew he was going to find her out. She looked over to the DEFENDANT chair were Tom was sitting. She looked away. Her heart gave a painful little squeeze as she accepted what she was doing. All hope and love inside her shut down and she became prepared to lie.