Prejudice and ignorance is a recurring theme in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. All characters, with the exception of Atticus, display varying degrees of both, some, like Scout, Jem, and Dill, in innocence, others, like Robert Ewell, with complete malice. Mayella Ewell, who only appears in a couple chapters of the novel, is a character who embodies both ignorance and prejudice, yet is a character who inspires a mixture of pity and anger. We learn that Mayella, at 19 years old, is the oldest of seven children, her mother has been dead for a long time, her father beats her (and she is terrified of him), and she is expected to keep the house and care for her siblings. There is perhaps also a hint of sexual impropriety between her father and her. So she is old beyond her years in many ways. However, there is also a childlike naivete in Mayella, and it is this that stirs pity for readers. We really see this most clearly in Atticus Finch's closing arguments. He tells us that Mayella is a "victim of cruel poverty and ignorance" and he paints her, not as a responsible adult, but as a child who has "tried to put the evidence away from her" (Lee, 1960, p. 207) as all children do when they are caught doing something they know they should not do. And it is in this knowing that we see the prejudice for which Finch ultimately holds Mayella responsible:
[Mayella] has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. (p. 207)
Finch also tells us that this code did not matter to Mayella before she broke it, but when she realized that she had been seen, the enormity of the consequences "came crashing down on her afterwards" (p. 207). Mayella not only breaks the societal code keeping whites and blacks apart but then she lies about it in court and shifts responsibility to the jury:
I got somethin‘ to say an’ then I ain’t gonna say no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an‘ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanta do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin‘ cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don’t come to nothin‘—your ma’amin’ and Miss Mayellerin‘ don’t come to nothin’, Mr. Finch —. (p. 191)
One may ask why Tom Robinson is not equally held responsible for breaking this 'code.' For one, "[Mayella] is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it" (p. 207). Finch is acknowledging here that it is white society that holds the power, and because they do, they have a responsibility to wield it fairly. Mayella instigated the intimate contact even though she knew the results would be disastrous. For another, Tom recognizes the danger in the situation and actively resists Mayella, first by trying to unentangle himself from her embrace and attempts to kiss him and then by physically running away. So although readers can sympathize with the loneliness and womanly desires for intimacy that lead to her breaking the code, we cannot sympathize with the blatant lies that reveal Mayella's prejudice and ultimately make her no better than her father.
Two more minor characters also display a mix of ignorance and prejudice. In Grace Merriweather, we meet a member of the Ladies Missionary Circle and in Scout's opinion "certainly the most devout lady in Maycomb" (Lee, 1960, p. 234). But Mrs. Merriweather quickly reveals her ignorance to readers as she characterizes the potential Mrunas converts as people who are victims of "the poverty… the darkness… the immorality" (p. 234), that they live in "sin and squalor" and that the best thing for the church to do is to "just let them know we forgive ‘em, that we’ve forgotten it, then this whole thing’ll blow over” (p. 235). What sin the Mrunas are committing, what exactly they are to be forgiven for is never revealed, but Mrs. Merriweather is simply regurgitating philosophies she's probably grown up hearing and believing. However, she moves beyond mere ignorance to prejudice when she reveals her treatment of the black citizens of her own town. She disparages Tom's wife, suggesting that the preacher needs to go her and encourage her in how to live a Christian life (p. 235), and she complains about her maid Sophy being "sulky… dissatisfied" (p. 236) because of the proceedings against Tom, and wonders why she hasn't fired her. She also disparages the "good but misguided people in this town [. . .] who think they’re doing right" by defending Tom Robinson, calling them "[b]orn hypocrites" (p. 238). The irony is that Mrs. Grace Merriweather is probably the biggest hypocrite in town.
The second of these minor characters in Dolphus Raymond, who prefers to socialize with the black community and is living with and has fathered children by a black woman. He is actually the victim of prejudice because most residents of Maycomb, disagreeing with his choices, whisper about him behind his back. Although we could perhaps laud his 'bravery' in making his own choices in the face of conventional wisdom, he can only do so with the false bravado that drinking brings him. We eventually find out that Dolphus's whiskey is really Coke and that he fakes being drunk because doing so allows the townsfolk to understand why he chooses to live the way he lives:
It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason. When I come to town, which is seldom, if I weave a little and drink out of this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymond’s in the clutches of whiskey—that’s why he won’t change his ways. He can’t help himself, that’s why he lives the way he does. (Lee, 1960, p. 204)
So in all three of these more minor characters, we can see how prejudice and ignorance are characterized in Maycomb, and it is against these that Atticus Finch battles...alone.
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