Additionally, the death of Tom Robinson further emphasizes the above point. Even the wardens at the jail are not exempt from Dolphus Raymond’s observation. Since Tom was convicted, he was sent to jail. However, as Atticus surmised, Tom ‘was tired of taking a white man’s chances’ and tried to escape. Unfortunately, in the process, Tom was gunned down, with ‘seventeen bullet holes in him’. As Atticus said, ‘They didn’t need to shoot him that much’, moreover Tom was already crippled with his ‘shriveled left hand’. Thus the excessive shooting of Tom more subtly shows how the blacks are made suffer to suffer just because of their colour. To the whites, ‘one Negro more or less, among two hundred of ‘em’ meant nothing showing clearly how ‘white people’ failed to respect that the negroes’ lives are just as sacred as anyone else’s.
Another way the ‘white people’ give the ‘coloured folk’ ‘hell’ is by humiliating and insulting them. This is seen in Mr Gilmer’s cross-examination of Tom Robinson. Mr Gilmer starts off by arrogantly putting himself above Tom, by addressing Tom, a man as much as Mr Gilmer, as ‘boy’ instead of by name. Additionally, Mr Gilmer attacks Tom’s character unnecessarily in court. He insinuates that Tom had sexual motives in helping Mayella with her ‘chores’, and that he had his ‘eye on her’ in front a courthouse full of people. The ‘hell’ Mr Gilmer makes Tom Robinson feel here is different from what the Ewells inflict on him, but it is nonetheless hurtful. In court, Mr Gilmer cast unwarranted doubts on the honesty of Tom’s intentions and his morals as a man, humiliating and degrading him, without any consideration for his feelings.
On a similar note, intimidation is also another way whites give the ‘coloured folk’ ‘hell’. Bob Ewell’s boorish intimidation of Helen Robinson is another way whites give the ‘coloured folk’ ‘hell’. Because the Ewell family ‘chucked at her’ when she walked past their residence on the public work on the way to work, she had to go ‘nearly a mile of her way to avoid the Ewells’. Thus this is an example of physical suffering the whites impose on the blacks, as Helen was forced to take a much longer path to work everyday, wasting time and effort she could have spent on her children. After Mr Link Deas confronted Mr Ewell about this, Bob Ewell proceeded to follow Helen to work the next day, ‘crooning foul words’ at her, no doubt terrifying Helen. Which again exemplifies how Therefore, whites often make the ‘coloured folk’ suffer by terrorizing them and instilling fear.
Aside from the aforementioned, there is also another type of ‘hell’ that the whites give the ‘coloured folk’ – refusing to accord them basic rights as individuals. Mrs Merriweather for example admonishes her cook, Sophy, for being what she called a ‘sulky darky’. Clearly she is insensitive to the situation that Tom, probably a friend of Sophy’s, had just been convicted to the death penalty. Here Mrs Merriweather refuses to let Sophy grieve for the loss of a friend, insists that she is ‘not being a Christian’, and said she felt like ‘let[ting] her go’. So we see that Mrs Merriweather does not even allow Sophy the right express her feelings, and instead insists she lighten her mood if not risk losing her job. The ‘hell’ in this instance is less obvious, but through this incident it is evident that in Maycomb, the whites wield a certain power and authority over the ‘coloured folk’ even though the slave trade had already been abolished. Sometimes, like in the case of Mrs Merriweather, this authority is abused, making the ‘coloured folk’ suffer to fit the whims and fancies of the whites.
To conclude, the ‘hell’ the whites force the ‘coloured folk’ and the suffering they make them endure may vary from case to case. In spite of this, the underlying cause of this is that the whites put themselves above the ‘coloured folk’ and fail to realize that they are all of the same race - the human race, and all deserve the same respect. Even in the courthouse, in which Atticus says ‘all men are created equal’, prejudice prevails and Tom Robinson is convicted and made to suffer for a crime he did not commit because of the colour of his skin, and the pigheadedness of a white family called the Ewells.
