In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, an obsession with normalcy and reputation looms over the town of Maycomb, Alabama. While the population, including protagonist Scout Finch, fears going beyond the social standards of a typical Maycomb inhabitant, the Ewell’s stand out as an unwanted family that does not belong to any particular class in society. While Scout cannot fully comprehend her surroundings due to her age, her narration pushes readers to have a deeper derived understanding of the underlying issues rooted in society during the novel. Specifically, Scout’s view of Mayella Ewell’s disability leads to a much broader understanding of disability as a whole and how it pertains to social classes, normalcy, and visibility.
Scout, a close-minded and naive young girl, proves her evolution as she slowly begins to see glimpses of society’s norms through her eventual understanding and appreciation of Boo Radley. Born to a well-known family, Scout is disabled by her privilege and inability to break habit and the boundaries that surround her as a child. Despite being raised by a radical father who protects the innocent, Scout’s awareness of her familial and societal strength keeps her sheltered and naive. Being raised to believe that normalcy means a place where, “Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum,” Scout’s conviction of social norms is not unheard of. (5) Moreover, having an awareness at a young age that her father, Atticus, “was Maycomb County born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him…Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town…” leads to her sense of entitlement above others (5).
Scout accepts and does not question how normalcy affects the lives of those who do not meet certain social standards according to the people of Maycomb. Embracing the regularity of these presumptions, Scout explains Walter Cunningham’s refusal of a quarter for lunch at school by saying simply, “Miss Caroline, he’s a Cunningham,” referring to how the Cunningham’s never have lunch or lunch money, and never accept anything that, “they can’t pay back” (20). By saying this, she is adhering to the expectations and labels that bring Maycomb to assume and believe the stereotypes that her town is built on. When, to Scout’s chagrin, Walter goes to the Finch house for lunch and pours molasses over his meal, Scout makes fun of Walter, displaying her ignorance of how other people live. Calpurnia, who has raised Scout and Jem, leads to Scout’s first step towards tolerance by acting as a mother figure and telling her, “Yo‘ folks might be better’n the Cunninghams but it don’t count for nothin’ the way you’re disgracin‘ ’em—if you can’t act fit to eat at the table you can just set here and eat in the kitchen!” (25).
Although Maycomb has adapted to the behavior and lives of the Cunningham’s, the same cannot be said for the Ewell’s. The people of Maycomb dwell on the unusual lives of the Ewell’s and it is clear that, “Nobody said, “That’s just their ways,” about the Ewell’s,” as shown by the multitude of people that attended the trial, no doubtedly for the entertainment. (195) Not only does the entirety of Maycomb look down on the Ewell’s, but the family relentlessly disables themselves in a seemingly proud manner by pushing their way through life. Burris Ewell confirms this pattern in school by instigating a fight with his teacher, yelling, “Ain’t no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c’n make me do nothin‘! You ain’t makin’ me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain’t makin‘ me go nowhere!” (28). Additionally, while his sister Mayella seems to care about her appearance during the trial, Burris is described as, “…the filthiest human I had ever seen. His neck was dark gray, the backs of his hands were rusty, and his fingernails were black deep into the quick…” making no effort to elude from or alter the Ewell family image (27).
During the court case against Tom Robinson, Mayella’s manipulation of the jury becomes obvious as she uses her gender and race as a tool to receive sympathy. Evidence of the disability her father and his alcoholism has thrusted on the family becomes clear throughout the trial due to her manipulation. Unlike Burris, she shows signs of wanting something better for herself as she, “…looked as if she tried to keep clean, and I was reminded of the row of red geraniums in the Ewell yard” (181). Despite her effort to look composed and feminine, Scout sees Mayella’s effort to go beyond the Ewell name will never work due to how, “…she seemed somehow fragile-looking, but when she sat facing us in the witness chair she became what she was, a thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor” (181).
Having grown up in a motherless family, Mayella is forced to throw away her childhood to play the maternal role for her siblings, especially when her father is absent. Due to her unusual childhood, she has been stripped of any chance to be a normal white woman in Maycomb and thus feels the need to make an advance on Tom Robinson. Throughout the novel it becomes evident that he is the only person who is nice to her and treats her like an actual person, instead of just a Ewell. Her disability as a Ewell deems Mayella invisible, allowing her family’s reputation to envelope her as a person. When Tom rejects her, she uses the only thing she has to gain attention: her womanhood. By accusing him of rape, she believes that she can get empathy from others, as well as having a chance at being visible in society.
This cry for help stems from her guilt of being caught by her father when trying to kiss Tom Robinson. Instead of admitting her loneliness and contempt for her father, she does the only thing the Ewell’s know how to do: she bullies and blames her way through it. Her reluctance to admit that her father beats her arises from her upbringing as a mixed child, and never having the ability to have a voice. Scout forges a comparison between Mayella and Mr. Dolphus Raymond, pointing out that she is a, “…mixed child: white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was white. She couldn’t live like Mr. Dolphus Raymond…because she didn’t own a riverbank and she wasn’t from a fine old family” (195). Although she is not a mixed child in accordance to race, the word “mixed” alludes to how she is a minority and does not fit into any category or social norm.
In relation to Scout’s recognition of Mayella as a minority, it becomes clear that Mayella is knowledgeable enough to understand her place in society as well, or lack thereof. Comparable to Scout, Mayella is raised without a mother. Unlike Scout, however, Mayella is forced to become a mother to her siblings, and therefore never has a proper childhood. This frames her as a mixed child, left in a stage between childhood and adulthood, never able to properly experience any sense of normalcy. Accordingly, Mayella’s father never considers her a woman, resigning her to a life of manual labour, forever stuck acting like a man but being a woman. Mayella essentially does not want to conform to the Ewell stereotype, and yearns for a chance at having a friend or a relationship. While she is aware of her father’s anger, she searches for a chance to defy him and rebel against society by kissing Tom Robinson, proven when Tom says, “She reached up an’ kissed me…She says what her papa do to her don’t count” (198). Being caught by her father fundamentally enables her to cry out against his abuse and make an attempt at ending it.
At Scout’s young age, she often compares people and situations to help comprehend them herself. Although Scout begins to see past the normalcy which coats the town of Maycomb, her immaturity lingers. When she says, “…Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world…” Scout proves that she views Maycomb as her world, still unable to see past the societal pressures and small-minded regularity of her home town. Unaware of how to describe an outlier, Scout compares Mayella to Boo Radley, who at one point is the scariest and loneliest person she can think of. Mayella consciously leads the jury to feel sympathy for her throughout her lie about Tom Robinson, and although she has no education, “…She’s got enough sense to get the judge sorry for her…” (181). Having seen Mayella manipulate the jury in this way, Scout says that, “She was even lonelier than Boo Radley…When Atticus asked had she any friends…she thought he was making fun of her…She was sad…” (195) Her uneducated and invisible upbringing leaves her with no other understanding of how to get what she wants without lying, regardless of whom she hurts. In Maycomb, where the town-dwellers are used to each family’s quirks, and make excuses for each other by saying, “That’s just their ways,” the Ewell’s remain outliers, with no way to fix their status (195).
Similarly, Boo Radley’s effort to reach out to the Finch children displays his desire to step outside of his disability, and remove his label as the town scapegoat. Boo Radley’s older brother Nathan holds a parallel to Bob Ewell, in that Nathan tries desperately to limit Boo’s chance at making friends or having a normal life. Despite having a possible slight mental disability, Nathan places a larger disability on Boo’s shoulders as he limits his interaction with the outside world. His portrayal of Boo as dangerous instills the same belief on the entirety of Maycomb. As soon as he becomes cognizant of Boo leaving gifts for Jem and Scout, “…Mr. Nathan put cement in that tree, Atticus, an‘ he did it to stop us findin’ things…” (74). Conversely, while Mayella has no one to defend her, Jem maturely defends Boo to his father by saying, “—he’s crazy, I reckon, like they say, but Atticus…he ain’t ever hurt us, he coulda cut my throat from ear to ear that night but he tried to mend my pants instead… he ain’t ever hurt us, Atticus—” (74). Although the Finch children originally fear Boo, he is later given a chance to strip his label that Mayella is never given.
Scout Finch’s narration of To Kill a Mockingbird proves itself as the most relevant and necessary voice to break into the insight of the people of Maycomb. Her immaturity and adventurous personality allows her to view each new situation in a different light as the story progresses. However, although Scout does not originally have the ability to understand the nuances of her father’s job and the trail, her narration brings an opportunity for further exploration into Mayella’s disability and lack of normalcy.