To Kill A Mockingbird Essay
Every day of our lives we make a choices and some of them are good and others are bad. Maybe we make a choice to do something even though we know it is bad. We could also make a choice that you know will result in something good happening. Many of the choices we make don’t really have a huge impact on our lives. Every person makes decisions in their lives and their decisions result in consequences that can have a good impact, a bad impact, or not really impact our lives which is shown in the book To Kill A Mockingbird.
A choice Tom Robinson makes in the story that affects the rest of his life is to help Mayella Ewell. When Tom is being questioned, he is asked why he went over to Mayella Ewell’s house and Tom says that he went over to help her fix things when she asked him to her. Mayella would usually ask Tom to fix something for her like a door or a chifferobe. “ I was just trying to help her sir”( page 263). This quote shows that the reason why Tom Robinson went over to the Ewells house was because he would help Mayella when she asked him to.
Tom’s decision to help Mayella Ewell was the reason why he was accused of forcing himself upon her. Mr. Gilmer (Mayella’s attorney) asks Tom why he ran away from the Ewells and Tom said because he did not want to get falsely accused of forcing himself upon her. “ No suh, I’s scared I’d be in court, just like I am now. Scared of arrest, scared you’d have to face up to what you did? No suh, scared I’d hafta face up to what I didn’t do” (page 263). This quote show’s that Tom Robinson was very afraid that he would end up in court and he knew that if he did, most people would not believe that he did not harm Mayella.
After the jury takes a very long time to think about whether Tom is guilty or not they finally come to a verdict. The jury’s verdict is that Tom Robinson is guilty of forcing himself upon Mayella Ewing. “ He would look up at Atticus, then down at the floor, and I wondered if he thought Atticus was somehow responsible for Tom Robinson’s conviction” (page 280). This quote shows that Tom Robinson was found to be guilty of forcing himself upon Mayella Ewing.
Due to Tom’s decision to be nice to Mayella and to help her when she needed something turned out to be the reason why he was falsely accused of forcing himself upon her. Atticus did a good job representing Tom and even showing that one of his arms was crippled which would not allow him to hit Mayella where she was hit. The town in the end is still too racist to believe that Tom was innocent and did nothing to Mayella and it was her father who beat her. Tom gets sent to prison and he is shot and killed for trying to escape. Tom’s decision in the book To Kill A Mockingbird was an example of a decision that had a very negative impact on the rest of his life. People can take away from this book that you need to thoroughly consider all of the possibilities whenever you make a decision to determine if something bad might happen because of your decision.
