To Kill a Mockingbird minor characters

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To Kill a Mockingbird

Task:        Examine the role of the minor characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird”

Many readers think the only importance when reading a book is to concentrate on the main characters, but actually this is untrue. Often the minor characters symbolize something and sometimes they are supposed to show the reader the story from a different point of view.

A synonym for minor is “accessory” and I think that this word explains this wonderfully well. People wear accessories to make themselves more valuable and to seem more creative or stylish.

This is what an author actually tries to do with his minor characters.

Bob Ewell is the drunken head of Maycomb’s poorest family. He lives on the dump with his daughter Mayella and a unknown number of sons. He has no job and for the reason of laziness and he has has no intentions of getting one. Instead he drinks, goes hunting out of season and his daughter has to take care of their house and children.

In his knowingly wrongful accusation that Tom Robinson raped his daughter, Bob Ewell represents the dark side of the South: ignorance, poverty, squalor, and hate-filled racial prejudice.

His daughter, Mayella Ewell, deserves a more blessed life. She is (sexually-) abused by her father, lonely and unhappy. For that reason she falls in love with Tom Robinson, who helps her and shows her some kindness. Mayella thinks that Tom feels the same way about her and tries to have sex with him. Tom, who is married rejects her, but while she tries to get close to him, her father catches them.

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In court brightens, that even though Mayella loves Tom, she still attends racism in a rude way by calling Tom Robinson a nigger.

Mayella symbolizes the whole community, who are swayed by some racist leaders and do not even know what the words they are saying actually mean and why they are saying them.  

The gentle, handsome, black man who is the only one treating Mayella so good-hearted is Tom Robinson. He is accused of rape by Bob Ewell and suffers indescribably from racism. Everyone knows that he innocent. Still he is sentenced guilty and he gives up ...

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